Find a Way
by 21hrhn21
Summary: After a worldwide memory wipe leaves her life in disarray, Ashley Davies struggles to get back her old life and to find the girl she can't remember loving.
1. Prologue

**A/N: Woo, new story time! That didn't take long at all. So this one started off as a Spashley fic on my old computer, and then after it was fried I contemplated making this into a book series with new characters because I liked the idea in general, so I started writing it as that on my new computer, then I thought it might make a cool TV show or movie and I'm into script-writing so I contemplated experimenting with that... and now it's come full circle and I've turned it into a Spashley fic again! **

**So anyway, this isn't a guaranteed thing because like I've basically said, it's such a big idea for me that at one point I had the story divided into six novels in my head which I wanted to be about 50k-75k words each, but ultimately I've potentially condensed it and shortened the story a bit to where it's doable as a fic. There may be sequels if I get super into this and don't get lazy and end the story before its original intended end point.**

**But ANYWAY, bottom line: This is a big project for me to take on, is what my brain is telling me. I'm basing this on my intended direction for this story. It's got the kind of plot I'd expect a book series to have, with the romance as more of a secondary element, although I've done my best to make it more of a primary one here. So in order for me to do this, I just want to gauge if there's some interest in this plot before I officially use this plot bunny on a fic rather than as a novel or whatever else I could do with it. So this is a short prologue, or intro, or teaser, or whatever you wanna call it. I'm 12k words into this one so far and I don't want to continue if it's not something anyone would want to read.**

* * *

**Tldr:**

**To make a long story short, if you like it, tell me! Otherwise I'll assume no one wants to read, and I genuinely want to know if you guys are interested. I'm trying to get back into Spashley fic-writing and if a different plot would be appreciated or enjoyed more I'd like to know so I can scrap this and start something people will actually like, haha. Anyway, here goes...**

* * *

_There's a tingling sensation in my fingertips and my mind is swimming as long hair that doesn't belong to me slides gently across my shoulder. There are lips on my neck but I don't want them there; more than anything, I want to see her eyes even if it means losing contact with her lips. What color were they again? Blue? Green? I can never remember. _

_ There's a voice in my ear, and I know what it's asking for. She wants to keep going. She always wants to keep going, every time. I always let her, but we never get far. I want to know what her voice sounds like. Even if I've just heard it, I can never remember. I can never remember anything._

_ A hand cups my cheek and I open my eyes, catching a glimpse of baby blue irises before lips cover my own. Baby blue. Blue. Remember that._

_ Her other hand slides down my body, across my chest and then down my stomach, and I let out a shaky breath into her mouth when her fingers slide down and then press up. It'll end soon. It always ends before I want it to. I need to see her hair before it does; need to remember. Blue eyes, and her voice sounds like…_

_ I try to come up with the memory of her speech, but it's already fading; already hazy. I want to ask her to speak again but she's kissing me and it's too distracting. I want to pull away and see her hair color because I've already forgotten it, but her fingers are leaving sparkling flashes of light beneath my eyelids every time they send a fresh pulse of pleasure throughout my body. Blue eyes. Blue eyes…_

My own eyes snap open but I'm alone and awake now, my reoccurring dream already fading at record speed. "Blue eyes," I hiss aloud, hastily scrambling out of bed and then ducking underneath it. There's a loose floorboard under my bed and I move it out of the way to reveal a personal stash of items specifically only for my eyes. I hastily pull out a leather-bound book with the word "Journal" emblazoned on the cover. I scoot back and flip it open rapidly, snatching out the pen tucked carefully between two pages in the process, and finally find the page I want. It's nearly blank, with only the word "girl" written at the top, my sole lead on who exactly I've been dreaming about nearly every night. I press pen to paper as the last of the details of the dream leave me.

"Shit." I don't remember what I was going to write. "Fuck!" This always happens. Every night. I can't risk leaving my journal anywhere else, though. Not without risking my life in the process. It has to be kept somewhere I know it won't be found, even if that means it takes longer to retrieve.

Abandoning the journal and pen under the loose floorboard, I take a moment to fume over my frustrations as I crawl back into bed. Why can't I remember? How badly was my brain tampered with, exactly? How bad were _all _of our brains tampered with?

Eventually, I _will _remember long enough to write it down. And when I do, I'll find her.

My name is Ashley Davies, and I'm one of seven billion people who had their memories forcibly wiped six months ago.


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who read and/or left feedback! Glad to hear you guys seem interested in the plot, so we'll see how this goes. I was still a bit on the fence about continuing to post this but I've written like 10k more words since I posted the prologue so it appears that I'm invested enough in this that I'm going to want to write it regardless if whether or not there's an audience for it haha. **

**This chapter has a bit more background so it'll give you all a better idea of what kind of setting you're dealing with here. If anything's confusing please let me know; I've done so many rewrites of the beginning of this story over the past two years that some of it might've gotten lost in translation because I'm already so familiar with this world. **

* * *

I should start with a timeline of everything I know, although things are obviously fuzzy in places, and possibly inaccurate considering the source of this information. There was a war in there somewhere, that much I know. A year ago, maybe? They came from underground, in waves, with technology even our most advanced peoples had no chance against. With the press of a button, nuclear weaponry was rendered useless, and with the pull of a trigger on an almost alien-like gun, soldiers from the U.S. and Britain and India and Spain and you-name-the-country were instantly vaporized. The modern world didn't stand a chance. At least, that's what I've learned from my teachers.

From there, the three Leaders and their army, now referred to as "Patrol", had a free path to what essentially became world domination. Rebel forces rose up every now and then but were always crushed with ease. At some point, the Chip was developed, designed to force everyone disloyal to the Leaders to start fresh. New life, new memory, new loyalties. Six months ago, it went global. We all had the brain surgery, had the chip implanted, and here we all are. The only upside is that it didn't work exactly as planned. We're all still free thinkers; still have knowledge even if we can't apply it to our old lives and memories. We just lost any will to fight when we lost the memories of what pissed us off so badly in the first place. Now we don't know anything other than the world we live in now.

But something's different about me; that much I can tell. Unless everyone else is harboring the same secret I am and just keeps it quiet, I'm a special case. I don't have memories of my old life, but I have a person. Someone so special to me that she's the only person that's ever been in my dreams. I haven't met her in reality –at least not that I know of- but I know she must be alive, must exist. I have to hope there's more to my dreams than just wanting the touch of another girl.

Not that I don't want that, and badly. There are rules implemented by the Leaders. One of them is that we were all paired off for the purpose of efficient and regulated reproduction. We all get partners: "Mates". Mine is Aiden Dennison. We're partnered for life unless one of us chooses to sever this bond by voluntary joining up with Patrol, and after we finish high school next spring we're expected to have kids together. I like Aiden, and we get along well, but I know I'm not attracted to him, and I know exactly why.

I imagine the girl from my dreams must have been involved with me in my past life. To what extent and for how long, I don't know. Maybe we were in love. Maybe I loved her and she only gave me one night to prove it, and then moved on. But I aim to find out, and that's where my journal comes in, stashed in my hiding place along with everything else hidden under my floorboard.

Amongst my journal and a few old documents that offer information like my name, birthdate, and the identities of my parents (all illegal information to have on hand; we were told who we were by followers of the Leaders after our surgeries, and were expected to take their word for it) is a small, blank book that could fit in the pocket of a pair of jeans, a broken compass that I can never seem to make point north the way it should, and a small solar-powered calculator. I found them all under the floorboard one day while trying to find a place to hide my journal. Evidently someone else thought it'd make a good hiding place as well. Personally I'm never one-hundred percent sure _any _place is safe, with Patrol doing house checks so frequently.

I don't know who put the items there, but I do know that they can't be there for no reason. They have to be important, and I aim to figure out how and why. Hopefully they hold the key to getting my memory back.

I can't save the world, or even change things for the better, but maybe if I can figure out who this girl is, I can start to figure out who I _was_. And that's definitely something worth working toward.

* * *

There are three Leaders. One in New York, just across the continental U.S. from where I reside in California, one somewhere in Western Europe, in Spain or England, I can never remember, and one in Australia. They've spread themselves out strategically to make it harder for them to be assassinated by any lingering rebel forces. However, they do meet every three months for a worldwide broadcast. Viewership for this is mandatory, of course. When in the public eye, each of them wear strange, ancient-looking masks that cover their faces from the top of their heads down to their upper lips, along with mouthpieces that mask their true voices. No one I know has any inkling of the real identities of the Leaders, so we just simply refer to them by their locations. Yesterday was the second broadcast I've been forced to watch. Ninety days before that was the first, and ninety days after today will be my third. That's the way it is, and the way it always will be.

Today is December 15th, year zero. It's a Monday, which means a fresh week of school. I hate school. I hate everything about it, from the brainwashed teachers to the Patrol guards at the back of each classroom, and not to mention the classmates I'll never be able to truly bond with considering every conversation is held amongst a sea of eyes and ears monitoring every syllable of speech. Once, a few months ago, I saw a boy I had English class with being dragged away, screaming, by two Patrol guards who apparently didn't like something they'd heard him say or saw him do. And then I never saw him again. So it's no wonder we keep speech to a minimum.

Aiden's an exception, because we see each other in the privacy of our own homes sometimes. It gives us an opportunity to be ourselves around each other. Mates are given leeway when it comes to their social interactions; we're supposed to be together for life, after all. It'd be different if I were seen with someone else out of school on more occasions than deemed normal. That might be seen as out of the ordinary, as non-conforming, and so understandably I avoid it, although I'm still not exactly Patrol's favorite King High attendee.

But I do have friends –acquaintances, more like- other than Aiden. There's Chelsea, a girl I have Statistics with, and Madison, who shares English with me and a class with Chelsea. We're a neat, even little triangle, and with Aiden we make an even neater foursome. I know Chelsea and Madison have Mates but I've only glimpsed them on a couple of occasions. Madison's is a tall, lanky red-haired boy with Harry Potter glasses and a mouth of metal; I don't think she likes him much. And Chelsea's is a dark-skinned boy who's always lugging around Physics books. I've heard Chelsea and her Mate are on par with Aiden and me as far as enjoying each other's company, maybe even have us beat. Aiden, Chelsea, Madison, and I all share a lunch period at 11 am, though, and it serves to bring us close enough to feel mildly comfortable in each other's company. When everyone around you is a stranger and people disappear daily without any warning, it's hard to develop a real sense of trust.

"Hey." I give my three companions a small smile as I join them at our usual lunch table at 11:08. "Sorry I'm late. Chem partner struggled a little." Chelsea gives me a knowing look. "Okay, _I _held us up. Sorry I suck at science."

Aiden wraps an arm around me and kisses me on the cheek as I take my seat. Standard procedure. There are guards watching, always. Chelsea speaks up again but Madison hardly looks at me, as per usual. She used to have a bit of a spark to her, but lately she's been strangely withdrawn. "How's your mom doing?"

And just like that, I'm abruptly launched into the last topic of conversation I want to broach at the moment. "The same."

Chelsea gives me a sympathetic look and Aiden thankfully changes the subject. The two of them start a new conversation and I watch Madison quietly pick at her food, as though she's deep in thought. She's not the only one.

My mom's been sick for as long as I can remember. It's something with her lungs. She's gone to the doctor but either they don't know what's wrong or they don't want her to know, because the only thing they've given her has only been useful in making the pain go away. She's the only family I have left, and though we aren't close, the idea of her leaving me makes my heart clench in my chest and a lump form in my throat. I like Aiden but I don't know if I'll ever truly consider him family, even when he's all I have left.

I have no memory of my dad. My mother tells me she believes he perished prior to my memory wipe. It makes sense, but it leaves me with so many questions. Is he really dead? If so, how did he die? And why? Not to mention the fact that he left us with nothing, and my mom isn't exactly in a position to work. If the law didn't treat Mates like already-married partners, we'd lose our house. Thanks to my link to Aiden, his family's wealth is our family's wealth, something I know his family must not be too happy with. Not when he could've been paired up with someone like Madison, who from what I understand is quite endowed in the financial area. I guess the way she's been acting lately is proof that money can't buy happiness, though.

"Hey," I say gently, getting her attention while Aiden and Chelsea continue to speak to each other beside us, oblivious. Madison looks up at me, slightly surprised and with an expression on her face that convinces me I've ripped her away from some very deep thinking on her part. "You okay?"

She raises both eyebrows, then smiles slightly and nods. "I'm fine." I see her glance toward the nearest Patrol guard as he walks past the table to our left. "Really."

She's lying; something's definitely going on. But she won't talk about it here. Too bad "here" is the only place I ever talk to her. Could it be that she's been having the same sort of strange dreams that I'm having?

The idea is so striking and so exciting that I immediately feel the need to have my question answered. If Madison's having dreams too, maybe everyone is. Maybe if enough of the people I'm close to share their dreams aloud –combine what we've seen in them- we'll get some sort of clue as to what the world was like before. What _we _were all like before.

I lean forward, catching Madison's gaze and lowering my voice once I'm sure the guards are occupied. "Let's meet up after school today."

I can immediately tell she hates the idea. She shakes her head vehemently, eyes darting around. "Are you crazy? No."

I glance around us again, vaguely registering that Chelsea and Aiden are watching us now, half-questioning and half-amused. I ignore them. "If something weird's been happening-"

"Ladies?" A deep voice rumbles from behind me and Madison pales as she looks past me. A strong hand falls to rest on my shoulder, threateningly close to my neck, and I immediately tense. Shit. "Anything interesting going on here?"

I swallow hard, my mind racing for an excuse, any excuse. Any lie. "No, sir," I mumble. His hand's around my throat in a second and I feel myself being yanked up and turned around. Any sound I make is choked off by the strength of his grip and I feel fear filling my chest as my gaze is forced up into the cold, beady eyes of one of the beefier, meaner Patrol guards of King High. I can't breathe. Oh God, I can't breathe.

I vaguely register Aiden standing up beside me, panic radiating off of him in waves. "I swear she didn't do anything wrong, sir, we were just talking-"

"-about strange occurrences yes, I heard…" he drawls, not taking his eyes off of me. I can feel my face turning red. My airway is still being cut off and my vision's starting to swim.

"Sir, she can't breathe," I barely hear Aiden say, fear evident in his tone. "Please, she didn't mean anything by it."

"All events that raise any unique questions or concerns should be reported to a member of Patrol as immediately as possible," he recites, still not releasing me. The edges of my vision are starting to go black and I open and close my mouth, but I'm unable to speak. I know we've gained the attention of everyone in the lunchroom, but no one else is stopping him. "You would do well to remember that."

I can't nod. "_Please_," I hear Aiden continue desperately beside me. The hand releases me at last and I collapse, sucking in air as a loud thump resounds beside me. Aiden's hit the ground hard and he's cradling his face with a wince when I finally manage to look at him.

"If I catch you whispering again, you won't be so lucky," the guard warns, and then stalks off without anything more than an intimidating glare directed Madison's way. I crawl over to Aiden as he sits up and gingerly reach out to touch his reddened cheek.

"I'm sorry," I apologize immediately, guilt creeping into my chest as I watch him wince at my touch. He just shakes his head and tries to get to his feet.

"Just follow the rules for once, Ash," is all he says, his pride very obviously wounded as he sits back down at our table and Chelsea and Madison look on, concerned but clearly disapproving of my actions. I watch Aiden for a moment as he turns his back to me, then swallow hard and finally retake my seat, humiliated.

"Okay," I reply quietly, fleetingly wondering whether or not that counted as a whisper.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who continues to read :)**

* * *

"I'm just saying that you do have a bit of a tendency to get into trouble," Chelsea tells me, punctuating her comment with a slam of her locker and turning to walk with me down the hallway. I furrow my eyebrows at her and she shrugs in response. "Sometimes it's just better to keep your head down, you know? It's a miracle you haven't had worse happen to you, to be honest. You piss Patrol off at least once or twice a month."

"Not on purpose," I insist, weaving in and out of the crowd around us, thankful for the noise masking our own conversation. "They just get pissed off by every little thing."

"I don't know what you said to Madison," Chelsea retorts, "but judging by her reaction it seems like you both knew it wasn't a conversation to be having with Patrol around."

"Well when else are we gonna have it?" I point out.

"Never; that's the idea. Ashley, seriously. Keep your head down. Wake up, go to school, go home, sleep, repeat. It's not that hard."

"But is that really what you want the rest of your life to be like?" I question earnestly. "There could be so much more out there. So much to learn, understand, see, feel-"

Chelsea stops me there. "That's exactly what's going to get you into trouble. One day, you'll bite off more than you can chew and Aiden won't be able to bail you out." She gives me a warning look and then leaves me there in the hallway, heading into a nearby classroom. Sighing, I continue on through the bustling students around me. A shoulder collides with mine and my head throbs, and I immediately drop the books in my hands, disoriented.

"What the…?" I blink, looking around and trying to steady myself as I reach up to feel at my pained skull. People are bumping into me from all sides now, and I struggle to gather my books and stand up straight again. When I'm finally upright once more, I glance around myself briefly and see no one else bent over to pick up books of their own. Whoever made me drop mine is long gone. "That was so weird," I murmur, still rubbing at my head as I take the next step in the direction of my upcoming class. "Ow."

* * *

My mom is lying on the couch when I get home, a glass of water and a pill resting on the coffee table next to her. She's supposed to take her medicine every day at four o'clock.

"How was school?"

I'm suddenly aware that bruises may be forming on my neck. "Fine," I answer quickly, disappearing into the closest bathroom before she can get a good look at me. No need to make her worry. "Boring as usual," I continue, raising my voice so she can hear me. I don't get a reply; she can't speak loudly enough for her voice to reach me.

I check my neck in the mirror and decide I probably have some time before I'll need to cover anything up. I join my mother on the couch, lifting her feet and then resting them on my lap. She smiles at me. "Good. Better boring than bad."

"Unless boring _is _bad," I propose. She smiles at me fondly and I'm suddenly uncomfortable. I don't like being around her too often. Not with her condition. She's dying and we're bonding. It's terrible, but I can't help how I feel.

Abruptly, I stand back up again and her smile fades. I pretend not to notice. "I think I'll go work on homework in my room. Need anything before I go?"

She shakes her head. She always does. "No, I'll be fine. Go ahead."

I nod my response and disappear down the hallway, my last glimpse of her revealing she's planning on spending her afternoon buried in the latest "Leader's Digest".

"Propaganda bullshit," I murmur as I sit down on my bed, then silently wonder when I got so rebellious. I guess being put in a monthly chokehold by Patrol does that to a girl. Chelsea's right; it's a miracle they haven't killed me yet.

I collapse on my back and watch my ceiling for a moment, mulling over the past few hours. What happened in that hallway has never happened to me before. I get strange dreams about that girl, sure, but my brain only plays tricks on me at night. Never during the day.

Inspired, I get up and worm myself under my bed, retrieving my journal from underneath the floorboard. I flip to a blank page and click the end of the pen once, then place the tip onto the paper. I pause, unsure of how to word what I'm about to write. Finally, I improvise, writing the words as they come to me.

_December 15 – Got a weird headache when someone bumped into me today in the school hallway. Felt like my brain checked out on me for a few seconds. Not sure why. This has never happened before._

I stare at the words for a moment, and then sit back, deep in thought again. I have dreams I can't remember at night. Could it be possible to have dreams I can't remember during the day? Quicker flashes of memory, maybe? That just raises even more questions, though, rather than answering the ones I already have. And it wouldn't help me to have daydreams without my journal around to record them.

I let out a long sigh as I finally elect to return the journal to its hiding place. I'm so tired after everything that's happened today. Aiden's upset with me, Madison's only getting quieter and more skittish with each passing day and I certainly haven't helped that, and Chelsea thinks I'm headed for trouble of the getting-killed sort. I hate this. I hate that my mom's sick, I hate the future that's been hand-picked for me without my consent, and I hate not knowing anything about my past. And after today's events I'm just so… _tired._

_There's light streaming in through my bedroom window as evening approaches, giving the room an almost yellow glow, and I can't concentrate on my homework. It's August; I should be outside while summer is still here. And I'm not smart enough to be taking Calculus as a junior in high school. That's something Spencer could pull off; not me. _

_ She's here with me, sitting just a few feet away from me on my bed with an incomplete handwritten English essay beneath her. I take a break from not understanding how to take a derivative to watch her work, taking in the way her eyebrows furrow in concentration and how she bites down slightly on her lower lip when she gets stuck. We've been officially dating since October of our sophomore year but I don't think I'll ever stop losing my breath in the moments like this. She's so beautiful._

_ Her eyes flicker up to mine and she catches me staring. We've been dating too long for me to get embarrassed about things like this, so I don't flush, just watch her lips curve into a smile as the light makes her blonde hair look even blonder. "What?" she asks, smiling like she already knows the answer. _

_ "Nothing," I tell her, truthfully. "I'm just glad you're here."_

_ She quirks an eyebrow. "We hang out together every afternoon after school, Ash. We've been doing it since middle school."_

_ "No, _here_," I emphasize. "With me."_

_ It takes her a moment, and then she smiles warmly. "Well… good. 'Cause you're not getting rid of me anytime soon."_

_ She grins at me and I grin back until my head starts to throb. First slightly, then harder, and harder, until my vision starts to swim. "What the…"_

I shoot awake, gasping for air in my dark bedroom, and then immediately curl up into a ball and let out a loud sob, gripping at my head as it rings and throbs, causing me an alarming amount of pain. My head feels like someone simultaneously took a hammer and a knife to it. I press my face into my pillow to muffle my cries, not wanting to wake my mother, and wait for the pain to subside. My dream is fuzzy, already mostly faded, but I've got the gist. I need to write it down.

I wait another five minutes and the pain is still very much present, but I'm losing memory fast. I need my journal now.

Gritting my teeth and trying to ignore my head, I get out of bed and quickly grip my nightstand when I realize I'm too dizzy to walk. Carefully, I drop down to my knees and then to my stomach, crawling under my bed and retrieving my journal and pen. A minute later, I'm back on my bed, head settled to a dull throb. I flip open to the page from earlier today and press pen to paper, closing my eyes and trying to remember anything more than a conversation on my bed with the same girl from my other dreams. There was… math.

I let out a frustrated sigh and can't help but force a laugh. Of course I can't remember what she looked like but I can remember I was doing math homework. I search the recesses of my memory for anything useful. Her hair color is a blank. Everything we said is gone, even though I remember there was a conversation. The date…

"August," I whisper aloud excitedly, hastily jotting it down. That's right, it was August, a year and a half ago, and I knew that because I was doing Calculus and I wanted to go outside while it was still summer, and because my room was- "Yellow. Blonde!" My heart pounding, I flip to the page from last night with shaky hands and write a word below "girl"… "blonde". Grinning so widely my cheeks hurt, I let out a deep breath and stare down at the page. "She was blonde."

The memory of my dream faded now, I realize that I didn't bother writing a word about it, but I'm too elated to care. Something's changed. That wasn't my usual dream, and it's 2 am now. I fell asleep before 4 pm; this wasn't just me going to sleep at night and having another dream. This was my body forcing me to sleep so I could see this. This was my brain wanting me to see this. And I'll gladly take the pain that comes afterward if it means I can get one new word to add to this page. Maybe there's some way to induce it, even…

I keep my journal with me in my bed this time, settling back down under the covers and resting my head on my pillow. I take a deep breath, trying to calm my body, and close my eyes, waiting for sleep. I change my breathing to a more even, relaxing pattern, willing myself to fall asleep for just another hour or two. That's all I need.

I do, at some point. My vision goes black and then everything is bright. The color schemes are exaggerated in my dreams now, I'm beginning to notice. This time there's a TV playing a movie within a darkened room, casting a blue light over everything inside.

_"What about Aiden?"_

_I look at Spencer, disgusted, and punch her in her barely-there chest. _

_"Ow!"_

_"No way."_

_"I'm just saying… you need a date to the 8__th__ grade dance, and I think he likes you."_

_"Well, I don't like him, and I don't want a date. What if he tries to kiss me?"_

_"Then you kiss him back," Spencer tells me simply. "That's how it works. Haven't you seen any romance movies lately?"_

_"What if I don't wanna kiss him? What if it's weird and awkward and I don't know what I'm doing?"_

_Spencer sighs, fixing me with an annoyed frown. "So learn."_

_"How? Gonna teach me?" I challenge mockingly. I know she won't. Spencer's never kissed anyone either, and even if she had, she'd still never have the guts to kiss me._

_She can tell I think I've won this argument. "See?" I continue. "Don't tell me to learn if you're not willing to-"_

_I'm cut off when she leans forward and pushes her lips up against mine. My stomach flutters, hard, and I blink my eyes twice before slowly closing them and leaning into her, increasing the pressure between us. A second later, she pulls back and it's over._

_"Oh," I say quietly, resisting the urge to put a hand on my stomach while Spencer looks away from me, embarrassed. What else do I say in this situation? "Thanks."_

_She smiles thinly, and I can see her flushing even in the dark. "No problem."_

My skull is on fire. Forget the hammer and the knife; my head's had a jackhammer taken to it.

I bury my face into my pillow again, biting down and then letting out a scream, hoping the pillow's enough to muffle it. I don't hear any movement outside my door, so it must be.

For all my pain, I get Aiden's name. That's it. I can't remember anything else. Now I know I knew Aiden from before the wipe, and I could've guessed that myself. We get along too easily to not have been friends at some point.

Although the pain is stronger, it doesn't take as long to subside this time, and eventually I relax again, not bothering with my journal. I'll put it in its hiding place in the morning; right now I need to think.

Clearly, something's happened to my brain, and I'm not sure it's reversible, even if I wanted it to be. I don't know if I can deal with this, though. Having these new dreams and dealing with the headache afterward is manageable, but what if I ever want them to stop? Am I doomed to deal with these headaches for every night of the rest of my life? All for one or two pieces of information at a time?

Rolling over onto my side, I try to weigh out the pros and cons, as though I actually have any role in controlling these dreams. Bottom line, they're happening whether I want them to or not, which means the headaches will also keep coming whether I want them to or not.

But for now… I think I'm already ready for the next dream.

"Bring it on, brain," I murmur, closing my eyes, relaxing, and attempting to fall asleep again.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm thinking I'm going to condense this into one story rather than making sequels, so this story needed a name change. Title comes from a song by Tyler Blackburn. **

* * *

Aiden drives me to school in silence the next morning. I can tell he's still upset about yesterday, and our drive is tense. He won't look at me. When we get to King High, we still have twenty minutes until our first classes, so I let my guilt convince me to grab his arm and stop his progress before we can get through the front doors of the school. I look around for Patrol guards but don't see any. "Can we talk?"

He fixes me with a glare and rolls his eyes. "I need to get to class."

"We're early. Please?" I give him the most pleading look I can muster and he grudgingly agrees, letting me pull him around to where a grassy knoll overlooks the parking lot where his car is parked. I sit down beside him and watch him survey the area around us with a tight jaw and tensed _everything_. I let out a sigh, noting the barely-hidden bruise on his cheek for what must be the tenth time since I got into his car this morning. "Are you mad because I got you hurt? Because I'm really sorry; I really didn't mean for-"

"No, Ash," he sighs out, shaking his head and still not looking at me. "You're fine. Stop apologizing."

"No," I counter forcefully. "I screwed up. I know that. I _always _screw up. I shouldn't keep putting you in situations like that, especially because you always take the bigger beating. So I'm sorry."

We fall into silence as I let him take in my apology, but he doesn't visibly relax at all. I don't know what else to say to fix things. I can't tell what's bothering him anymore.

Finally, he sighs and shakes his head again. "It doesn't matter how much you screw up. I'm supposed to protect you."

"You do," I point out. "I was half-dead before you stepped in, remember?" I tell him with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood. It doesn't work.

"Exactly." He grits his teeth and if possible, his jaw tightens even more. "He had his hand wrapped around your throat and I couldn't do a thing about it."

I watch him silently. I don't know what to say to that. "Well-"

"It is what it is," he cuts me off, meeting my gaze with his own. He looks frustrated. "Don't try to make me feel better. Bottom line, I'm supposed to keep you safe. Forget the fact that we aren't a real couple like they try to force us to be; I'm still responsible for your safety. And I wasn't enough. I'm never gonna be enough when you're up against those guys. And the thing is, Ash… you don't stop. You keep coming at them, like you're not even _afraid_. What if one day you finally push too hard and I can't-?" He stops there, swallows, and then shakes his head one last time, getting to his feet. "You know… Sometimes I think I am where I am for a reason. Other times I wonder if neither of us should be where we are right now."

He starts to leave and I get up hastily. "Wait, what? What does that even mean?"

He doesn't answer; just leaves me alone in front of King High, confused and cold as the December wind whips my hair about my face.

* * *

Three days and several headache-inducing but disappointingly uninformative dreams later, Madison goes missing. It's a Friday, and given the way she only grew more shifty and fidgety as the days went by, it's not surprising logically. Emotionally, I feel like my heart's heavy and frozen in my chest, and my brain can't wrap itself around the idea that Madison was here and now she's just… gone. We weren't the closest of friends but she was a familiar face, and I liked her. I could talk to her, and that's special in itself.

Chelsea, Aiden, and I assume that it was Patrol at first, and that Madison got involved with something she shouldn't have, because any time someone randomly doesn't show up to school it's usually because they've been taken away to have who-knows-what done to them. That assumption changes by Friday afternoon, around the time I'm walking down the hallway and suddenly find myself seeing stars. I find out later I was slammed headfirst into a locker.

The same Patrol guard from the lunchroom is standing over me when my vision finally clears, and behind him stands a semi-circular crowd of stunned students who watch with wide eyes but make no move to help me. As usual.

"Care to explain what happened to your friend?" he growls, moving his face close to mine while I'm still trying to blink away the last few stars. "I know you know, little girl."

"What are you talking about?" I mutter, squinting at him as my head starts to throb. It's been extra-sensitive lately due to my dreams and I know this definitely won't help it. It'll probably ache for days now. "She was taken."

"Don't lie to me," he murmurs lowly. I find myself being hoisted to my feet and pressed against a wall as the smell of warm, rancid breath invades my senses. I try hard not to wince. He's disgusting.

"I'm not lying. Are you saying _you _don't know where she is? So she's safe, then?" I don't hide the pleasure in my tone and it only angers him further. He swivels away from me and his eyes land on Chelsea, who's standing amongst the students looking on. Without warning, he stalks over and yanks her out of the crowd and out into the open with me, drawing the gun at his belt. I recognize it immediately; it's one of the ones that can vaporize with one shot. He points it at Chelsea, who instinctively tries to move away, but he grabs her and holds it against her head.

"Start talking or I'll shoot her."

Fear grips me and I open and close my mouth, watching Chelsea stare back at me with terror. If they won't believe that I don't know anything, I'll have to make something up, or else risk Chelsea's life.

Before I can answer, a commotion starts in the crowd and I see two more Patrol guards hurry forward to subdue what turns out to be Aiden and another boy -Chelsea's Mate- who evidently haven't taken kindly to the current situation. They end up being led into our little opening with their hands forcibly held behind their backs by men several times stronger than either of them. Aiden's face is beet-red and I know how much it must be killing him that he can't help me. Chelsea's Mate only has eyes for her, and he's breathing so hard it's all I can hear right now save for my pulse thundering in my ears.

"Well?" the Patrol guard holding Chelsea presses. "Turn in your friend at once or you'll lose the one you have left."

"Let her go," I demand, putting on a brave face as best as I can manage. "If you're gonna shoot someone, why not just shoot me?"

He stares me down wordlessly instead of answering that, and finally repeats, "Talk."

He doesn't budge. I guess it's time to wing it and hope that what I say sounds somewhat plausible. "She-"

"Clay!"

A third girl fights her way out of the crowd and over to us, and I can't help thinking that she must be incredibly stupid. She goes to Chelsea's Mate, who must be named Clay, and I hear him speak to her through gritted teeth.

"Spencer, stay out of this."

"What's going on? You haven't done anything, tell them to let you go…"

That makes four people that've managed to be dragged into this mess. Four lives I'm now responsible for. Great.

"Alright," I finally start, causing everyone to return their attention to me. I face the Patrol guard holding Chelsea, and for the first time, look at the name on the badge sewn into his uniform. "Officer Sloan… why don't we compromise? You let everyone here get back to their lives, and I'll tell you everything I know." He doesn't like that idea, if his grip tightening on Chelsea is any indication. I try to hide how much I'm panicking on the inside by remaining as cool as possible on the outside. "If you shoot her, you can forget me talking. That goes for you shooting anyone. C'mon, let's do this in private. I can't tell you what you want to know in front of all these people, anyway."

To my surprise, he immediately tosses Chelsea aside, but I quickly realize it's only so he can grip me instead. He nods to the other guards and they release Aiden, and then Clay, much to the relief of Clay's blonde friend. However, Clay quickly brushes her off to check and make sure Chelsea's okay. I can tell Aiden wants to come to me, but one glare from me tells him to stay put. Sloan speaks to me gruffly as his nails dig painfully into my arm. "Very well, then. Come with me. We'll go somewhere we can talk without prying eyes and ears, and the rest can stay here." He starts to lead me away, and then hesitates, turning back to the other two guards. "On second thought, grab one. Just in case."

The other two guards exchange looks, and then one haphazardly grabs at the girl I've never met before. Clay breaks away from Chelsea, then, shouting, "Hey! That's my sister!"

One of the guards laughs as he drags the terrified blonde girl away. "Sure she is. I can definitely see the resemblance."

"She'll be back soon, don't worry," the other one adds, a mocking edge to his voice. "Probably…"

I grit my teeth and let myself be led down hallway after hallway, three sets of footsteps just behind me as the other girl continuously insists that she hasn't done anything wrong. That's how it works with Patrol, I want to tell her. Everyone's in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We eventually come to an office that I assume to be Sloan's. The room is full of filing cabinets that look to contain student records, but I don't have any more time to observe my surroundings before I'm roughly shoved inside and the three guards and the girl join me. The door is slammed shut and both I and my fellow captive are given free roam around the room as the two guards move to block the closed door. Sloan draws his gun again, holding it casually. "Now, where-?"

"Let me out of here," the other girl demands, cutting him off with more bravado than I admittedly thought she had. "I'm not a part of any of this, and neither is my brother."

"Your brother has a Mate who has been involved with people she shouldn't have been," Sloan growls, clearly unappreciative of her interruption. "If he did not want to put his loved ones in danger, he should have better monitored their actions. Instead, he gave his Mate free roam to spend time with the likes of Madison Duarte and _this one_." He gestured towards me as though I'm trash.

"He doesn't even _know _her," the girl protests. "And neither do I."

I don't like her. "Ashley Davies," I inform her casually. "Now you know me. Oops."

She looks to me as though I've betrayed her. I imagine she felt like we were in this together, and for a brief moment I feel guilty enough to shrug apologetically.

"Quit stalling," Sloan interrupts. "Where is Madison Duarte?"

"Dead," I say rapidly, struggling once again to form a plausible story. Sloan raises a disbelieving eyebrow and I realize I've over-fabricated. Shit. "Once you find her, I assume," I correct hastily. "She's decided to run."

"To where?" He looks concerned. There we go. I've hooked him. Now I just have to reel him in.

"I'm not sure. She got quieter, more secretive towards the end. But every now and then she'd bring up an idea…"

"Yes?"

"She wanted out," I tell him. "She thought there was more out there, than… than this. So she went looking for it. I think she'd have preferred to be anywhere else, feeling and seeing anything else other than this."

"She said this to you?"

"No." I shake my head. "But I could see it in the way she acted. She didn't like conforming. Always had hope that things might change one day. I guess she finally decided she should try to make her own change."

He looks displeased by my answer, but not unaccepting or disbelieving. "So she gave you no indication of where she could be headed. None at all?"

"No, but I'd guess it's somewhere she thinks you won't find her."

"Such as…?"

I struggle for an answer that would make sense. "…I'm not sure…"

Quirking an eyebrow, he raises his gun and points it in the other girl's direction. She shrinks back and I hastily step between them. "Wait! There was something… a man! A man who said he could take her to safety. He knew the route. There were people that would help her along the way. In the city. I'm not sure who but-"

"Are you saying there's a group of people helping to smuggle citizens out of the city right under our noses?" he demands furiously. I swallow hard, nodding, and he immediately swivels around to face the other two guards. "Morgan! Sanders! Report this to the Commander at once!" They leave without another word and Sloan looks to me and Blondie, his expression harsh. "I will ensure that this is investigated to the full extent of our forces. But if I hear about anything that was said in this room from anyone else, I'll know you two were the source."

"We'll keep it quiet," I assure him, giving his gun a fearful look for good measure. He hesitates for a moment, but seems to decide there are more pressing matters to deal with than two teenage girls, and hastily leads us out of the office, slamming the door shut behind us and locking it. Blondie folds her arms over her chest the second Sloan's disappeared down the hallway, and raises an eyebrow at me.

"You were completely bullshitting him, weren't you?"

She looks too proud for my liking and I answer sarcastically, "Whatever could have given it away?"

"Well, you literally just described the Underground Railroad, for one thing. The first part was good, though, with all the waxing poetic about wanting to see if there's something more than what's here. What'd you steal that from?"

"Me," I tell her curtly.

She doesn't seem to know how to respond to that. Finally, she gives me a scrutinizing look. "Ashley Davies, hmm? I think I've heard that name before."

"Unsurprising," I reply, unfazed. "You'll find Patrol and I have this little game we play. I annoy them and they hunt me down and then threaten me within an inch of my life. Then we wait a month or two and do it again."

"Right." She thinks I'm strange; I can tell. "Well, next time leave my brother and I out of it, okay?"

"Is he really your brother?" I ask her, disbelieving. "I don't know a lot about genetics, and I hate to break it you, but I think something might be a little off there."

"He was adopted," she tells me wryly. "I don't remember it actually happening; apparently we were really young, though. We grew up together."

"Fascinating." Satisfied that she isn't traumatized or otherwise injured in any way, I now know my work here is done and feel comfortable enough to leave her here. "Well, it's been great, whatever-your-name-is…"

"Spencer," she corrects. "Spencer Carlin."

"I didn't ask."

"Neither did I," she retorts simply.

"Yes, you did. You said, 'Ashley Davies, hmm?' I know our memories suck but yours can't be _that _bad."

"Very funny. And I meant the first time you told me your name."

"Whatever." I start to leave but she calls me back.

"Hey."

Sighing, I peer around at her, raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"

She bites her lip, then gives me a short nod, serious now. "You stepped in front of me earlier, when he pointed that gun at me. Thanks for that."

I stare at her for a moment. I don't think I've ever seen someone show gratitude toward me so openly, and I've bailed a few people out of a few shitty situations in the last six months, to say the least. For a brief moment, I wonder if we'll run into each other again now that we've exchanged names. Maybe I could grow to like her.

"Yeah, okay. No problem." I nod at her and then disappear down the hallway, silently wondering how ridiculous it would be to even entertain the possibility that I've made a new potential friend today.


	5. Chapter 4

_It's dark and silent as I hastily slip into a window on the back-left side of the Carlins' house. They always keep that one window unlocked, just in case my mom, dad, or I need to get inside in emergency situations. This is an emergency. My dad's been keeping me on a much tighter leash since the rest of the world fell to its strange new invaders. They say the U.S. is next on the list; we're the only ones left still standing, after all. I don't want to believe this, but tonight could be the last night I see Spencer for quite a while. Everything's unpredictable now, when any moment could be our last. _

_ I hasten up the stairs and enter Spencer's room, one small folded piece of paper clutched in my hand. She's asleep, chest rising and falling peacefully as she slumbers. I sit down beside her carefully, on the edge of the bed, and contemplate leaving my gift here without waking her up. She looks so content, off in a world that isn't about to end the way ours is. _

_ I shake my negative thoughts away and clear my throat. This is about Spencer and me, now. I can't dwell on what may or may not happen in the weeks to come. _

_ I reach down and brush my thumb across her cheek. "Spencer," I whisper. _

_Her eyes slowly flutter open and I watch coherence come back to her. She seems stunned for a moment, then sits up and frantically wraps her arms around me, burying her face in my neck. I squeeze her tight as she whispers, "I can't believe you're here. How-?"_

_I answer her as she pulls away to look at me. "I snuck out. Stole my dad's car. But Spence… I can't stay long."_

_She lets out a shaky breath, but nods._

_"I need you to stay safe, okay?" I tell her very seriously. "Listen to everything Arthur and Paula say."_

_"Dad's always gone, I don't know what he's been doing every day," Spencer tells me, wiping at her face to clear a few tears from her cheeks._

_"Mine too," I admit. _

_"And mom's always buried in her medical books. They won't tell me anything."_

_"I know," I murmur, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "They're probably doing the same thing we're all hoping someone will do: Finding a way to stop those guys when they finally get here."_

_"The rest of the world didn't seem to know how," Spencer points out with a sniffle._

_"I know." I repeat, swallowing hard. "So in case I don't see you again, Spencer…"_

_She's so busy shaking her head at me that she doesn't see what I'm trying to hand her. She cups my face in her hands and looks me in the eyes. "I'm not losing you."_

_"We should prepare for the worst," I tell her honestly. "I wrote you this." I offer her the letter. "This way you'll always have something to remember me by."_

_She accepts the letter but looks like she might cry again. "You're acting like we're dying."_

_I bite my lip, unsure of how to tell her this. "Spence, have you seen the news? We are."_

_Her bottom lip trembles and she whispers, "Don't say that. When this all blows over I'll come find you, okay?"_

_I nod, forcing a smile. "Until then, I'll try not to do anything too stupid."_

_She cups my cheek in her hand and kisses me. I kiss her back with all the passion I can muster, knowing it's the last time I may do it for a while. Maybe the last time ever. Her hands move to tangle in my hair and she pulls me closer, trying to get our bodies touching as much as possible, as though somehow if we get close enough we can become one person and won't have to be torn apart by this terrible war. _

_I break the kiss reluctantly and murmur, "I have to go."_

_She whimpers and hugs me tight. "I love you so much."_

_I nod into her neck, then kiss her there, gently. "I love you, too. When this is over we'll find somewhere safe to stay together, okay? With our parents and Glen and Clay. We'll all be safe."_

_"Okay."_

_I pull away from her and she wipes more tears away from both of our faces. Finally, I stand up, gesturing towards the letter in her hand. "Don't forget, okay? I'll come back."_

_She nods and I watch another tear slide down her cheek. "I know."_

_A lump forms in my throat and I swallow hard, feeling my eyes water again. I don't want to lose her. I'd die if I lost her. "Goodbye, Spence."_

_Fresh tears fall from her eyes at my words. "Goodbye, Ash."_

_Using every ounce of willpower I have, I turn and leave her room, closing the door softly behind me. A minute later, I'm back in my dad's car and heading home._

_It's the last time I ever see Spencer Carlin before my memory's wiped._

I pop pills like it's my job the instant I wake up, thankful for a moment that chronic headaches are part of my mom's medical condition. I've been hoarding them for at least a week now to help with the aftermath of my dreams.

The pain fades after a few minutes as the medicine starts to kick in, and I mull over the tattered remains of my dream as even those fade from my brain. I keep my journal with me in my bed most of the time, now; I need it far too often to bother hiding it under the floorboard. Cracking it open, I contemplate what I know and what I want to know. I know I've been using the girl's name when I talk to her in my dreams, so if I could just remember what it was…

I shake my head, hopelessly drawing a blank, and begin to write down what I do remember, which is that I wrote her a letter and gave it to her sometime before the war made its way to the U.S. It's not her name, but it's still useful information. It means that maybe she found a way to keep it from Patrol, and is on the lookout for me, as well. Although I'm not sure what information was actually in the letter. For her to have it now, she'd have to have hidden it before the memory wipe and then found it afterward. And there's also the outside chance that Patrol found it instead and punished her for it, in which case she may no longer even be alive.

The thought is crushing. I could be on a wild goose chase, dreaming of a girl who's long gone, who I'll never find or see again because Patrol got to her before I could. Although if I'm being honest, the odds are high that she's still alive. Patrol didn't kill teenage girls during the war; they killed grown men and women who fought back. I have a strong suspicion that that's what happened to my dad, actually.

I finish up with my journal and set it aside, and have just begun to fall asleep again when I hear a loud bang coming from the direction of my front door. My heart rate immediately skyrockets and I fumble to get my journal back under the floorboard as boots hitting wooden floor cause a very clear thump with each step down the hallway toward my room.

I hastily throw my pills into the drawer of my nightstand and then duck outside to meet the footsteps halfway. There are four Patrol guards in front of me when I face them, and all of them stare back at me intimidatingly. The lead one asks me, "Where's your mother?" He looks down to a piece of paper in his hand. "Christine Davies?"

"In her bedroom," I tell them, trying to keep all venom out of my voice. "She's very sick; she needs her rest."

"Well, that's too bad," he retorts. "We'll be conducting a full house check for the next hour."

"Why? We haven't done anything wrong."

His eyes narrow at my questioning of him. "We have reason to believe there may be citizens helping wanted runaways to escape out of the city," he tells me. "We aim to find out exactly who has been housing these escapees. Now, step aside, please. One of us will accompany you to your room, where you will stay until the check is over."

I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Great, so I basically brought this on myself.

The youngest-looking one, a boy that can't be more than a couple years older than me, is the one who searches my room. He's got curly, blonde hair and bright blue eyes that inspire a stirring of memory in me, and I can't figure out why. Could he be someone else I used to know before the wipe? Could I have really been friends with the kind of person who would join Patrol?

"My mom really does need sleep," I tell him as he casually sifts through the clothes in my closet. He doesn't seem too determined to find anything, actually.

"We'll be in and out as quickly as possible," he tells me. "We have a lot of houses to search." He turns and I glimpse his name on his badge. "Another Carlin?" I can't help saying aloud, disbelieving. No wonder I recognize him; now that I know his name, I can see that he looks just like Spencer.

He quirks an eyebrow at me as he moves to my nightstand. "Another?" He's surprisingly not-hostile for a Patrol guard.

"I met your sister the other day. Saved her from one of the likes of _you_, actually."

He seems perturbed by this, but I also swear I see the corners of his mouth quirk up for a moment as he opens the drawer of my nightstand.

"So you've met Spencer."

"Just the once. She's alright. You impress me more, though, with the lack of growling and grunting at me. Considering all I've seen Clay do is shout a little and then get taken down by a few of you guys, looks like you may be Top Carlin. Unless there are _more _of you people?"

He doesn't answer right away, instead lifting the bottle of pills up and turning in my direction questioningly. "I've been getting headaches," I tell him honestly, hoping he won't ask further questions. Thankfully, he doesn't, instead returning to our conversation as he moves on to another area of my room.

"There are just the three of us. Clay, Spencer, and I."

"And your parents?"

"Gone. No idea who they are, actually."

I can't believe I'm actually having this conversation with a _Patrol_ _guard_. "That's terrible." He must be a new recruit. The originals, although surprisingly few in number, got to keep their memories. Glen must have elected to join after the war had already started. That explains why he's less hostile, although I have to question his choice.

"Yeah, well… can't exactly miss them if you don't remember them, right?"

I think of Spencer, now, and how she immediately darted out of the crowd the second her brother was in danger. At the time, I thought it was stupid, but now I think I understand. "So you three are all each other have," I murmur. He doesn't respond, but he doesn't have to. The answer is clear. "I'm sorry."

"Let me do my job, ma'am," he replies briskly. I hear him loud and clear. I've hit a nerve and he's done talking, now.

The minutes tick by and I watch in silence as he thoroughly searches every crevice of my room save for the one I'm desperately hoping he _won't_ search. Finally, he moves back to the center of my bedroom and surveys it, as though he's mentally going over every possible hiding place. His eyes settle on my bed, and he drops to his knees. My heart starts pounding. Oh, no.

He gets on his stomach and wriggles under my bed. It's a tight fit, but he makes it work. I wait with baited breath as he lays there for a moment, still. I hear a piece of wood shift and my eyes squeeze shut as I murmur, "Shit."

I'm dead. That's it. They'll take me in for contraband in the form of those documents and I'll finally know what happens to every screaming kid that Patrol steals from the halls of King High. They might even take my mom, too. I'll never see Aiden or Chelsea again. Aiden will be devastated, too. He'll find a way to blame himself for this, the way he's blamed himself for every injury I've sustained in the last six months. He's still hurting from the incident in the hallway a few days ago. This will kill him.

Glen slides out from under the bed, gets to his feet, and faces me. My jaw tenses and I stare up at him defiantly. He fixes his badge casually. "You're good."

My expression falls away and for a moment I'm the perfect picture of supremely confused. "Huh?"

He raises an eyebrow at me like he thinks I'm strange. "You have a hearing problem or something? I'm done. Your room's clear." I blink at him, watching him mindlessly as he heads for my door. "The others should be finished soon; I think the only thing left by now should be your attic. Stay here until we leave." He cracks open my door and leaves, but not before peeking back in briefly to tell me, "Nice meeting you, Ashley Davies."

The door closes and I briefly wonder when I told him my name.


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N: This chapter's one of two pretty short ones in this story so I'm updating sooner than usual. I'll try to speed up the next update as well for you guys, especially since I'm now finished with Part 1 of this whole thing. Thanks to all who keep reading!**

**There were a couple things mentioned in reviews so I'm gonna address them, hopefully without spoiling things too much. Firstly, someone asked if Spencer got her memory wiped too and I feel comfortable clarifying that there's no twist there; she lost her memories just as Ashley did. Whether she can recover memories like Ashley can through dreams, I can't reveal, because that's a massive plot point haha. Also, people have been asking about Madison. You will eventually find out what happened to her, but not for a LONG time.**

* * *

A week later, our new spring semester starts, which for King High means new schedules, complete with new classes and new classmates. I luck out enough to snag one class each with Chelsea and Aiden, but when I get to lunch, I'm in a room full of strangers. I end up sitting alone and doing my best to look at the bright side. At least since I don't have any friends to socialize with here, I can't get myself into trouble with Patrol the way I did when I tried to have a conversation with Madison about her strange behavior.

I take a moment to consider Madison's whereabouts. She's been gone for around two weeks now and I'm not sure that if Patrol found her we'd hear about it, but maybe in this case no news is good news. Maybe she got whatever she wanted. Sometimes I think that starving to death in the woods somewhere would be better than waiting around to die in the city. Maybe that's what Madison thought. Maybe she's dead, but on her own terms. I can see the appeal in that.

I'm yanked from my thoughts as a lunch tray clangs onto the table just in front of me, and Spencer Carlin calmly sits down across from me, offering me a shy smile. "Don't know anyone else," she mutters, embarrassed, and I nod my understanding awkwardly, looking down and picking at my food.

"Me either," I admit. After a moment, I raise my eyes briefly to focus on her. "Do you even _have _friends, though?"

I can't help it; I like aggravating her. Her eyes narrow. "Casual ones."

"They all are, aren't they?" I reply thoughtfully. "We never get too attached."

"With good reason," she points out. I nod, agreeing, thinking of Sloan with his nasty breath and perfected intimidating gaze and tight, painful grip. Then I think of her brother, and of how he saved my life so casually the night my house was searched. I wonder if she knows that he's actually a good guy beneath all the Patrol intimidation bullshit, or if she clings to Clay even more because she thinks she's lost her other brother to what I know we all think of deep down as the enemy, even if we'd never say it aloud.

I don't ask her about Glen.

We remain silent for the rest of our lunch period.

* * *

On a night when I can't fall asleep, I finally take a break from my journal to mull over the other things under my floorboard. It's funny; the documents are the only things I feel I understand completely, yet they're the only incriminating items I've hidden with the exception of my journal. The three mysterious and potentially most purposeful objects I own might not even be suspicious were I not hiding them. I mean, what could possibly be done with a broken compass, a calculator, and a book with no words in it?

With the objects resting on my bed, I sit cross-legged and pick up the compass, moving it around and examining it carefully. The arrow always points in one direction, but it's not north. I have a general idea of which way north is, and this thing points almost directly east. What the hell do I do with a compass that points east? Hell, for all I know, this thing could be useless. I don't know why any of the stuff under my floorboard was put there, and what I'm supposed to use it for, if at all. This compass appears useless and the only reason I still keep it around is because I'm afraid to throw it away on the off-chance that it _does_ have a purpose.

The next item, the calculator, is only slightly more valuable. I'm bad at math so I suppose it'd help with that, but why hide it? We all carry calculators for school.

Strangest of all is the small, empty book. There's literally nothing in it, even though it must have at least fifty little squares of paper that are blank and ready to be written on. Once again, it seems there's no reason I'd need to use this unless I ran out of room in my journal or deemed it too large to hide properly.

"Useless," I sigh out, tossing the book aside in frustration. I could be dreaming about my blonde ex-girlfriend right now. I could be one step closer to finding her, even if I have no idea what to do when I _do _find her. She may not want to face her past anyway, and she definitely has a Mate, the same way I have Aiden. They could be one of the rare pairs who have genuinely fallen in love.

I shake that thought off and close my eyes, resting my head against my bed's headboard. I need help. I need someone I can trust who can make sense of all this, of both my memory-dreams and the stuff I have hidden under my bed. Glen saved my life, but he's in Patrol; I could never get him involved in something like this. Chelsea doesn't even like holding _conversations_ that would get her into hot water with Patrol. And Aiden? I trust him, but can't help but feel that there's something off with asking my Mate to help me find an ex from my past life. Not to mention if he knew I was in so deep with something I could get killed for he might have a heart attack. I need someone who I know can keep things quiet, who's not afraid to get involved when there's danger. Someone observant and under the radar.

Someone like…

* * *

"Hey."

I catch up to Spencer Carlin in the hallway between classes, using my usual cover of scattered conversations and slamming lockers to have a conversation I definitely don't want any of the guards to overhear.

"Hey," she says, sounding a little confused. We have lunch together daily, but only out of social necessity. We don't talk much, if at all.

"Can you keep a secret?" I question, taking care to not get too close to her as we walk. I don't want to look like I'm trying to hide what we're talking about.

"I suppose?" she answers, still understandably confused. "But I'm not sure I want to."

"You'll be glad I told you," I assure her. "I need help with something."

"Like what?" she asks immediately, eyebrows furrowed.

I see a guard eyeing us and hastily reply, "Meet me at the picnic tables in the quad after school. Don't be late."

"But-"

I leave before she can reply, walking away briskly and pretending not to hear any protests she might send my way.

After school, I brush off a paranoid and confused Aiden when he attempts to offer me a ride home, and only head to the quad after he's grudgingly driven away. To my pleasure, Spencer's already there, waiting for me. She doesn't look happy.

"Look, I really-"

"Not here," I interrupt, looking around. There are always guards on school grounds, even if we're alone at the moment. "C'mon, follow me." I grab her wrist and immediately stumble as my vision goes black momentarily. She hastily grabs at me and catches me, and then slowly rights me, looking concerned as I struggle to get my balance.

"Are you okay?"

"Um…" I do my best to shake it off, but I've got a word burned into my mind and I'm so confused. "Yeah, I'm fine. That's happened before."

She lets me go and looks at me carefully. "You_ are_ aware that's not normal, right? You completely checked out for a few seconds; I had to catch you or you would've collapsed."

"Like I said," I tell her, "it's happened before. This kind of thing is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about." I know I've piqued her curiosity. It's understandable, to say the least.

I take a few steps forward and then turn back to look at her. "Are you coming or not?"

She hesitates for a moment, and then nods, following me away from King High with her backpack on her shoulder and curious confusion in her eyes.


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N: I'm a big fan of this chapter but I have a feeling some of you may not be :P**

* * *

"Where are we going?"

Spencer trails after me uncertainly as we walk along the side of a road about two blocks away from King High. "I don't know yet," I tell her honestly. I need to find somewhere safe and private. Even though we're headed in the direction of my house, my mom's there right now, and Clay and possibly Glen could be at Spencer's.

Trying to envision my route home every day in my head, I run through every building Aiden and I usually pass. It hits me.

"Look," Spencer begins, "What happened to back there was weird but this is ridiculous; you don't even know where-"

"The library," I cut her off, looking over my shoulder at her to see she looks hesitant again. "It's just a block from here. We can go there." Like every library I've ever encountered, it's abandoned and empty. Any books that are set in a world pre-Patrol are long gone now. There probably haven't even been enough books published in the last six months to fill a library.

Spencer's quiet for a moment, and then she speeds up a little and falls into step beside me. "You said you needed help with something," she recalls. "But what can I do?"

"I don't know," I tell her honestly. "Maybe just another set of eyes would help."

"So why me?"

"I don't have exactly have very many options."

"You have a Mate," she points out.

"I assume you do as well," I counter. "Would he be the first person you'd go to for something important?"

She doesn't answer. I've made my point.

"And my friend Chelsea doesn't even like to talk about the _possibility _of sticking my neck out," I continue. "She'd just tell me to keep my head down; that's what she always does."

"She's right," Spencer points out. "I don't even know what you want from me but I'm already sure that we'd be killed for the conversation we're about to have if Patrol found out about it."

"And yet you're here," I finish. "So I picked the right person."

She's silent for a while after that. We reach the library a few minutes later and I test the front door to find it unlocked. Looking around to make sure we haven't been followed, I pull the door open and step inside. Spencer follows me.

Empty shelves line and fill the room, slowly collecting dust. A desk sits a few feet away from us, equally dusty, and the room echoes with every footstep Spencer and I take, which means our voices might carry in here. But it's empty and deserted, and that's all I wanted.

"Come on," I urge, beckoning Spencer after me as I make my way to the back of the old building. She follows me nervously, looking around us as we walk.

"This place is creepy."

"Creepy is good. It means no one will come here and find us." I reach the back of the library and head for the corner, wiping away cobwebs and then taking a seat against the wall with my backpack placed on the floor beside me. Spencer doesn't follow suit, instead choosing to stand a few feet away from me, wary.

"Okay, I came all this way. Can you explain what the hell we're doing here, now?"

"Yeah. You might wanna sit down for this," I warn. She shakes her head.

"I'm fine."

"Okay," I reply with ease, taking her response as a challenge. I let out a breath. "I can remember some of my past life."

Her eyes widen slightly, but almost immediately change to narrow with suspicion. "What? That's impossible."

"I thought so, too," I tell her. "But I've been having dreams for a while now. At first it was just one, but now they've changed and I'm having more. They fade so quickly I can't recover a lot of information from them, but I do have a few things I've learned."

She stares at me disbelievingly for a moment, then glances over her shoulder, paranoid. "Are you sure you should be telling me this?"

"I need to tell someone. Something's going on with me and I think it could be big. I have these…" I turn to open my backpack and her eyes widen further.

"You brought stuff to _school_?"

"I needed to have it on me to show it to you, didn't I?" I counter, pulling out my journal, the small book, the compass, and the calculator. "I know it seems stupid, but I think these three things could be useful in some way. I don't know." I put the journal in my lap and leave the other three objects on the floor. Spencer stares down at them blankly, then looks up to my face. "I know. It's dumb. But they were hidden in my room along with some birth certificates and I think someone put them there. Maybe you can help me figure out what they're for."

Spencer eyes finally slide up to make contact with mine, and I can immediately tell what she's thinking.

"Look, I'm not crazy," I sigh out. "You're the only person I've told about this. I need your help; I don't have anyone else to talk to."

She shakes her head helplessly. "Ashley, you literally brought me to an abandoned library to tell me you have visions and that you think a book, a compass, and a calculator can do… I don't know, whatever the hell it is you're trying to accomplish, I guess?"

"I know it sounds bad. But can you please just give me a chance to explain?" I plead. Hastily, I offer her my journal. "Just look at this."

She seems inclined to say no, but I lean forward and practically press the journal into her stomach, and she grudgingly takes it. "What is this?"

"My journal. I write everything weird that happens to me down. Everything I can remember about my dreams, too."

She flips through it for a moment, lazily at first, until her eyebrows furrow and her movements become more purposeful. "You've dedicated a lot of time to this," she murmurs, glancing from the journal to me. "So if you're crazy, you're _really _crazy." Finally, she stops on a page, pauses, and then turns the journal around so I can see the page as she asks, "What's this?"

I lean forward and take in the page, full of a few weeks' worth of dream details scrawled in various spots on the page. Words and phrases like "girl", "blonde", "long hair", "gave letter", "starts with C?", "upstairs bedroom", and many more cover the page, some of which aren't even detailed enough for me to understand what they mean anymore. That was bad note-taking on my part.

I glance up to Spencer and then take the journal from her. "Some of my dreams are about other stuff, but most of them are about the same person," I inform her. "Someone important from my past. I'd like to find her. I don't know if this stuff will help me do that but I just wanted a second opinion."

She watches me for a moment, and then lets out a sigh. She shakes her head. I know before she speaks what she's going to say and my heart sinks. "I'm sorry. What you're saying is a lot to take in. I don't think I can help. This is over my head."

"What if this stuff can change something?" I question desperately. "You can't do what I can do. What if no one can? What if there's a way to get our old lives back? You'd just throw that opportunity away?"

"Ashley, we're never getting our old lives back; do you not see that?" Spencer counters just as passionately. "This world isn't the same as it used to be; it doesn't take someone who can do what you say you can to figure that out. You want to stage an overthrow, is that what you're saying? You'll get yourself killed!"

"That's _not _what I'm saying," I retort. "I'm saying that having our old memories back can't be a bad thing, can't it? Isn't it something you'd like to work towards?"

"Not if it gets me killed," she says pointedly. "I came here and heard you out, isn't that a big enough risk in itself? But this is ridiculous! How do you know these dreams aren't just that: dreams? Maybe you're so miserable that your subconscious had to make up a bunch of stuff to give you some hope?"

Her words make my heart sink deeper and deeper in my chest and I can feel my throat closing up. Maybe because deep down I'm worried that she's right.

She sighs at me when I don't reply. "Look, Ashley. I know you think you're trying to do something helpful. But… you have to admit you have a history with Patrol. I knew your name when we met because I'd heard people talking about how amazing it was that you hadn't been killed yet. Look at it from my point of view. I went out on a limb for a girl I don't know anything about other than that she has a habit of getting into trouble, and now you're telling me you see the past in your dreams and a calculator holds the key to getting your memory back? _C'mon_."

I'm shaking my head throughout most of the duration of her speech, and I feel like crying when she's done. "You're wrong. I know you're wrong."

"You can say that," she tells me quietly. I know she can tell I want to cry and she's trying to be as sympathetic as she can, but it only makes me feel worse. "But unless you can prove it, I can't help you. Not when the stakes are as high as they are. I'm sorry."

She turns to leave and I hastily get to my feet, pointing out, "You came here!"

She pauses, then glances over her shoulder at me. "So?"

"So you were hoping for something. You risked your life," I press. "Nobody does that for nothing. Part of you, deep down, wants to think that things can change. That there's more to living than this; something else out there. I know you want to believe that."

She's quiet for a moment, until she shrugs her shoulders and raises her eyes to meet mine. "Maybe I was wrong," she admits, and then turns and walks away, leaving me here with what may very well be a journal of delusions and a pile of useless shit lying on the floor.


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N: As always, thanks to all who continue to read and review :)**

* * *

_I'm roused from sleep by a rough shake of my shoulder, and when I open my eyes and squint into the darkness, I can make out the rough outline of my father hunched over me. "Ashley," he whispers, sounding urgent._

_"Dad?" I mumble sleepily, until it dawns on me that something terrible could be happening. It's wartime, and Dad wouldn't wake me up in the middle of the night for no reason._

_I sit up quickly, instantly wide awake, and question, "What's going on?" as he leans over and clicks on the lamp on my bedside table. _

_"You have to listen to me very carefully," he tells me, keeping his voice at a whisper. "They're moving quicker than we thought; it's predicted they'll be here by tomorrow."_

_"The invaders?" I question, frozen with fear. He nods and I feel it well up even more greatly within me. _

_"You have to stay here," he starts, and I immediately shake my head vigorously. He looks down, squeezing his eyes shut tightly like nothing's ever hurt him more than telling me what he's telling me now. "Ashley, I need you to take care of your mother. You'll be safe as long as you don't fight back."_

_"Where are you going?" I ask, surprised when my voice is thick with the telltale signs of oncoming tears. "You can't just leave me and Mom here alone."_

_"Your mother understands why I need to go," he tells me. "In time, you'll find out too, okay? But right now, I need you to be strong. You deserve to know as much as I can afford to tell you, so I'm going to be honest with you." He pauses, and then looks me in the eyes. "They're going to hurt your mother." I whimper and shake my head again. "It's my fault, but she and I know there's no other option. If I stay here, I'll be killed. If I go and take your mother with me, they'll hurt you, and besides, both you and your mother will be safer here than where I'm going. The only option is for me to go alone."_

_"What if they don't just hurt Mom?" I sob out. "You don't know-"_

_"Your mom is a strong woman," he interrupts me. "And it's me they want. If you two don't put up a fight they'll do their best to get information –information that neither of you will have- and then they'll leave."_

_ In the midst of shaking my head at him again, a realization hits me that nearly makes me light-headed. I feel like someone's just thrown cold water on me. "Are Arthur and Paula leaving tonight, too?" I know the answer even before he nods. Dad, Arthur, and Paula are all known members of the sect of the rebellion that's based in Los Angeles. How they came to be in those positions is a secret, but I've always realized that they were doing their best to fight back against our new enemies in whatever way they could. _

_ "What about Spencer?" I whisper, trying to keep my composure enough to have this conversation. I can barely hold it together right now._

_ "She'll be safe as well," he insists. "Glen will take care of her."_

_ "Glen?" I question incredulously. "Glen can't take care of her; she needs to come here and then I-"_

_ "No, Ashley. You need to trust that we know what we're doing. Glen is prepared to do what he needs to to keep both Spencer and Clay safe. You need to trust that."_

_ "How can I trust that? I don't know how she's doing, if she's hurt… if something happens I won't -"_

_ "Spencer is fine," my dad reassures me. He's got a few objects in his hands, I realize, and holds them out to me as I panic in front of him. "Listen, I need you to have these. I've already loosened one of the floorboards below your bed; that'll be your hiding place. Anything you don't want anyone to find can go there. I've already placed some things in there that'll help you figure out who you are, should you ever lose your way. They'll help point you in the right direction."_

_ I sniffle at him, trying to take in and understand everything he's saying despite the fact that I'm an emotional wreck right now. "What does that mean?"_

_ He ignores my question. "When the time is right, there will be a word you have to say. It's on one of the documents I've hidden; you just have to look carefully enough." He points to the lamp on my nightstand. "And a little light might help. Find the word, say it, and you should know what to do from there." He taps the small book in his hand, and I look down to it, along with the compass and calculator he's also holding. "Just find the word; that's all you'll have to do."_

_ "I don't understand," I whisper, looking up at him with confusion. _

_ "You will, Ashley," he assures me. "You're a smart girl. Just find the word, and say it…"_

_ My vision begins to blur as I blink up at him, and his face slowly fades from my vision, until…_

I'm breathing hard and I immediately fumble for the pills in my nightstand drawer again, the end of my dream staying with me enough for me to realize how important it all was. "Find the word and say it," I repeat over and over again through gritted teeth, desperately trying to ignore the excruciating pain in my head as I drop to my stomach and attempt to grab my journal. "Find _what _fucking word?" While I'm under my bed, I grab everything there, just in case, including all of the illegal crumpled papers I've been hiding. I feel like they were mentioned in my dream.

I gather all of this on my bed with me and quickly write down everything I can remember from my dream in my journal. This one was so important; I can feel it. The only things I can remember, though, are my dad's presence, a mention of my birth certificate, and the fact that there's a word I should say. I don't know where to start with that, but I do know one thing.

"Spencer Carlin was wrong," I whisper aloud, staring down at the objects on my bed. "This stuff is important, and I'm gonna figure out how."

A word. One word.

I try to think back and see if any words have stuck out to me lately. It has to be significant if it works as some sort of auditory passcode. My dad wouldn't make it some stupid, random word.

I reach for my birth certificate first, smoothing it out and searching it. Maybe the word's on here somewhere. "Ashley Davies," I try, not sure what I'm expecting to happen anyway. How will I even know if anything works? "Christine Davies. Raife Davies." Nothing. "Birth certificate. Patrol." I feel dumber as I go on. "Password. 1234. Rebels for the win?" I clear my throat and glare back down at the pile of documents on my bed. "Give me a hint here, c'mon." Naturally, the paper does not talk back to me, and I toss my birth certificate back onto the pile, frustrated. "Think, Ashley. It's dad. What would the father you know absolutely nothing about choose as a password?" I roll my eyes and sit back, staring down the small, empty book. Hesitantly, I lean forward and pick it up. "Is the password in you?" I ask it, flipping through the pages in one fell swoop. It's blank, as usual. Great.

I stare at two blank pages in suspicion for a moment as I think. Dad wouldn't have expected me to come up with this word with no clues. So it can't be insignificant. It has to be something I'd have figured out. Something I'd remember even with no memory.

Or something I'd remember if I ever started to remember my past.

"_Oh_." I sit up straight hastily, thinking back to when I blacked out for those few seconds with Spencer. When I came to, I could only remember one word. It seemed so meaningless even at the time, though…

I clear my throat, not quite daring to believe I could be right, and ask, "Forest?"

Unexpectedly, the book in front of me starts glowing as words in golden writing flow across the small, previously blank pages I was just staring at not a moment ago. "Holy shit!" I drop the book in surprise, then grab at it hastily the moment it hits my comforter and yank it open to page one. A moment later, I flip through it just as I did not even two minutes ago. Now it's at least halfway full. The pages are small, so I know there can't be much information in it now, but since it took some fucking magical _wizardry_ shit to get the words to appear, what does lie within has to be important.

And suddenly, I think I understand now. I get why I have the stuff I do. Because it's like I said before: Who would look at a small, empty book twice? A compass? A calculator? My dad couldn't very well just give me the answer to all of my problems. He had to hide it, so that I could be the only one to find it. This is step one of whatever adventure he wants to take me on.

Excitement barely contained, I open the book back to page one. "What the hell do you have in store for me, dad?" I murmur, and then begin to read.


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N: Sorry about the longer than usual wait! Finals week is a killer :( Here's a short update; I'll try to post another one soon but I have finals week part 2 and moving out of my dorm to do.**

* * *

_"Ashley," _the book begins, "_As I'm writing this, I'm not sure what my own fate will be. By the time you find this, either I will have died or I will be exactly where I aimed to be, in which case there may be hope for us yet. Our enemies plan to erase the memories of everyone who was not on their side at the start of the war, which means that in time this will also happen to you. I can only hope that you are still able to find the things I've given you and to figure out how to gain access to this book. I've got limited time to explain things to you, so I'll get straight to everything you need to know. Unfortunately, there's no time for details. Firstly, myself, Arthur, and Paula have gone away to gather with people who are like us, who hope to save even a bit of humanity from this takeover. It was unsafe to take our families with us, but hopefully you will have an easier time getting to your destination than we will, since you should be leaving after things have died down and they should not be expecting you to attempt an escape._

_ "Where you're going is very far away, but the compass will lead you there if you just follow the arrow. You will not be able to leave with only the information I can give you. Your escape from the city will be a team effort. If you want to get out safely, you will need to do it using the calculator. I had Arthur program it with a passcode, which he revealed to me was Spencer's birthday."_

I pause there, staring incredulously. _Spencer_? As in Spencer Carlin? And who the hell are Paula and Arthur? Are they her parents? This is raising even more questions than it's answering, and it was supposed to be what finally explained everything to me. "What the fuck?" I whisper, frustrated and baffled as I continue to flip through the pages one by one.

"_You may get upset with me for this, especially if you truly have lost your memories, but I'm not going to tell you what Spencer's birthday is, only that once you know it, you should enter the month, day, and last two digits of the year into that calculator in order to reveal your path. The only way for you to get this information will be to find Spencer and obtain it from her. I don't have time to write more; you should know what to do from there. Good luck, Ash. Be safe. I love you."_

It ends there, and I'm left with blank pages until the end of the book. I must reread the message two or three times before it finally begins to sink in. This is my way out. I talked the talk, and now here I am with the option to take myself up my own offer. Pull a Madison. The thought both exhilarates and scares me. I want to know what else is out there for me, especially if the safe haven my dad has hinted at really does exist. But on the other hand, getting caught means certain death, and I know my mom is in no position to travel. I'd have to leave her behind. And what about Aiden? Chelsea?

"Spencer," I murmur aloud, trying to wrap my head around what the message suggests about her. She fits the physical description of the girl I've been dreaming about, along with most of the stuff I've written down in my journal about her. Even the "starts with C?" suggests either I was thinking of "Carlin" or confused it with "S", both of which would make sense given the circumstances. And now my dad's told me to make sure I see her before I leave, or perhaps even take her with me. I'm not stupid. I just find it incredibly hard to believe that the first blonde girl I even somewhat befriend turns out to be the one I've been looking for for over six months now. Can my luck really be that good? And could it be so _bad _that the girl from my dreams did nothing but argue with me and call me crazy once I finally found her?

I reread the letter one time and let the pieces fall into place. The Carlin parents, Arthur, and Paula, and my dad ran off to go fight Patrol, who evidently knew they were all rebels. Patrol probably came for them after they were gone. So Glen joined Patrol to appease them before he had his memory wiped, and my mom's injury… suddenly makes a lot of sense.

Anger flares up within me as I realize Patrol is responsible for her condition. Whatever they did to her did nearly irreparable damage to her body, and now she's most likely got a year to live at most because the doctors won't give her the medicine she needs. What if there's medicine that could save her at this place my dad wants me to go to? What if my dad himself is alive after all, and is waiting for me there?

Blood pumping faster through my veins as adrenaline rushes through me, I frantically begin to form my plan in my head. Now that I know what I know, I need to leave as soon as possible. I can get Spencer's birthday from her tomorrow. Tomorrow night I can find the exit and finish making preparations for leaving. I'll go to school the following day, and then make my escape as soon as I get home. No one but my mother –who will know where I've gone- will report me missing until I don't show up for school over fifteen hours later. Hopefully that will be a big enough of a head start that I can travel safely to wherever I'm headed. According to the compass, I'm supposed to go east.

But then there's Spencer. Spencer, who lost her memories of not one, but both of her parents, and who has a brother working for the very same people who are responsible for that loss. And if Clay's actions after both Chelsea and Spencer were in harm's way all those weeks ago were any indication, he isn't exactly the solace she'd want or need in a time like this. He's more concerned with Chelsea's well-being. If I leave her here, am I leaving her here alone to rot in misery? Aiden and Chelsea both have people here that can care for them, but I'm not sure Spencer does. And besides, I haven't exactly spent every night yearning to find out Aiden or Chelsea's identities. Now that I've found Spencer and I know who she is, I should try to keep her close. I _want _to keep her close, and my dad wants me to keep her close. But how on Earth could I convince her to come with me, or even to hear me out, after the conversation we just had today? She'll just call me crazy again.

I let out a sigh, making up my mind. I'll say my goodbyes as best as I can over the course of the next two days without being too obvious, and less than forty-eight hours from now, I'll be headed out of the city and into the unknown with only my dad's words and a compass to guide me, regardless of whether Spencer Carlin is by my side or not. I can come back for her the way I'll come back for my mom, but if she won't leave with me two nights from now, I have to go by myself. I have to find out what's out there, and if my dad is still alive.

I get out of bed to rehide the objects resting on my comforter, adrenaline still running through me, and begin to collect a mental inventory of what I'll need to take with me.


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N: Thanks for being so patient, guys! All of my borderline grades went in my favor and now that finals are over I should be able to get back to updating frequently :)**

* * *

It becomes apparent within the first five minutes of my next lunch period that it may take longer than two days to start my journey out of Los Angeles. Spencer doesn't sit across from me, and when I do find where she's sitting, she won't make eye contact with me. Clearly she's jumped off the Team Ashley bus and has joined Team Douche, judging by the look of the guy sitting across from her. He doesn't look happy to have her there and I wonder why, briefly, as I take the two of them in. Mostly Spencer.

It's different, looking at her like this with the knowledge that I have now. Or that I think I have. There's always a chance that I just used to know Spencer the way I also used to know Aiden, but still, odds point to her being the girl from my dreams, and that's what I'll assume until I find any reason to think otherwise. It's an odd feeling, though, knowing what I know about our pasts and trying to make sense of it now. She's pretty, _really _pretty, and from what I've discovered about her personality, I think I can see why we got along before the wipe, even if we aren't exactly gung-ho about each other now.

I watch her as she takes a small bite of her food, clearly uncomfortable, and for the first time, I really _feel _something beyond a thirst for an answer. I sought her out in an effort to try and recover as much of my past as possible, but now I find myself simply wanting to remember what it was like to be with her, to have her as such a huge part of my life. I want to know everything about her, and I want to understand why I loved her and how I came to love her, and what made her feel the same. All are questions I can't answer until we _both _have our memories back. And the only way to do that is to take her with me. Can I really wait around to try and convince her, with my mom's life on the line and with no indication of how long this window of escape will be open?

I need to talk to her, and as soon as possible. Even if it just means getting her birthday for now, maybe that'll open the door to convincing her to leave with me. I know that must've been the conversation my dad hoped for when he set this up the way he did. He wants her to come with me, and wants me to convince her. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I can't let him down, even if it does mean waiting to leave. His orders might have a purpose that I don't understand, and leaving Spencer behind could be the equivalent of ignoring the compass, for all I know. I need to do everything as instructed.

I grab a napkin from the stack on my table and reach into my backpack, rummaging around until I find a pen. I scribble a small message onto the napkin: "Same meeting time and place today. PLEASE." It's the best I can do on short notice; lunch will end soon and it's the only time I see her.

I stand up carefully, backpack slung over my shoulder, and pretend I need to go throw my tray away. I can pass Spencer on the way back from the trashcan and give her the napkin currently crumpled in my fist.

I dump my tray a moment later and turn, taking the alternative route back to my seat that will lead me past Spencer. Her back is to me and that'll make this more difficult, especially with the scowling boy sitting across from her. I'll have to leave it in her lap. Beyond that, there's not much I can do but wait by the quad after school today and hope she shows up. If she doesn't, I'll try again to convince her tomorrow.

I'm halfway to Spencer when a hand grabs my arm, stopping me, and I turn to see Sloan staring down at me, his beady eyes looking particularly beadier today. I hastily shove the napkin into my pocket. "Come with me," is all he says, gruffly, and I feel his grip tighten to the point of pain. Two more guards stand nearby, and slowly, everyone in the cafeteria notices Sloan and me. The room falls silent and I glance toward Spencer, the reason for this dawning on me as try to hide my horror. She _didn't_. She wouldn't have ratted me out to him, would she?

She makes eye contact with me and her lips part like she wants to say something, but then she closes her mouth and just stares back at me. She looks scared for me but beyond that I can't read her expression, and a moment later our eye contact is broken as Sloan pulls me along and leads me out of the room. It's at least the fourth time in the more recent months of my life that I've been convinced I'm going to die. At least I'm getting used to it by now.

The other two guards don't follow us out of the cafeteria, to my surprise, and so Sloan and I are alone as he leads me down the hallway. I briefly consider trying to overpower him, but remember the gun on his hip. Not a good idea.

He takes me to his office and then releases me, clearing his throat and gesturing for me to sit in the chair across from his desk. Uncomfortable and confused, I follow orders, my eyes darting around to look for all possible means of escape. Even the windows are blocked by the same filing cabinets I've seen before in here, all filled with the same sort of papers I have hidden under my bed. The only way I can get out is through the door Sloan is locking right now.

He sits down behind his desk when he's done, across from me. Then he puts his elbows on his desk and rests his chin on his folded hands, casually. "Sorry. Had to keep up appearances," he tells me, conversationally. I'm beyond confused now. It must show. He clears his throat. "I thought you might like an update on the information you gave me. Patrol likes to reward its… allies… even if it took you a while to talk. We treat people well when they cooperate."

I'm even more confused. The stuff I gave him was bullshit. I actually probably should've taken that into account when deciding how long I should stay here; it was only a matter of time before they realized I was lying and came after me. But now he's trying to tell me I actually _helped?_

"There were, indeed, smugglers, as you said," he informs me. "We performed house checks across the city and caught dozens of hidden escapees we thought had been dead or long gone for a while. They and their hosts have been properly taken care of."

Dread fills me at his words and they send an unpleasant chill down my spine. What have I done?

"So…" he continues as I try to keep my feelings masked. "I understand that your mother has a medical condition that has continued to worsen over the past few months. There is medicine that can cure her, but it's very rare. My commander sent out a request for it, to repay you for your services." He leans over and opens one of his desk drawers, and I stare at him blankly, a whirlwind of emotions internally as I continue to try not to show any of this externally.

A moment later, he retrieves a small pill bottle and places it on the desk. Less than a month ago, he was choking me, beating Aiden, and threatening my friends and me with death, and now he's handing me the key to my mom's life in exchange for the dozens of lives I've no doubt helped him snuff out. I feel sick. This wasn't the right way to save her. This _isn't _the right way to save her. "Here," he says, sliding the bottle toward me. "This will help stop her lungs from weakening. Once she's taken them long enough, they'll start to reverse the damage as well. She'll be cured within a few months. There are thirty pills in there and as long as you continue to… please us… you'll get thirty more when those run out."

I raise my eyes to meet his, taking in what he's proposing. He thinks I know more, and he wants me to be his mole. He wants me to help him kill people who are just like me, who just want a way out.

I lick my dry lips as he watches me. "Go on, then. Take it. Your mother can start taking them tonight. You should notice an improvement within the week."

I glance down to the pills and think of my mother, lying on the couch tiredly every afternoon when I come home. Constantly popping pills for her headaches. I think of the way I can hear the strain in her body with every breath she takes, and the way I used to wake up in the middle of the night to the sounds of her coughing from down the hallway back before she learned to keep herself quiet. Most of all, I think of how tired she looked this morning when I bid her goodbye. I hate myself for what I'm about to do, but I think I'd hate myself more if I didn't do it.

"I don't want them," I say, very quietly. It takes him a moment to respond. I think he's not sure if he heard me right.

"Excuse me?" he finally asks, a strange mixture of surprised and indignant.

I shake my head. "I'm not taking them. Keep them."

He lets out a disbelieving laugh. "You'll let your mother die to save strangers?"

That's exactly what I'm doing, isn't it? It sounds strange to my ears when said aloud. It makes me sound like I'm something I'm not. I'm no hero; I'm not noble. I have no more information to give him, and the guilt would eat me alive if I accepted medicine I got by ending innocent lives. My mother will understand, and I'll get her the medicine she needs _my _way.

"Are we done here?" I ask him, ignoring his question. His nostrils flare. He's back to the Sloan I know, and he's furious.

"I suppose we are," he retorts, and then practically throws me out of his office.

I land ass-first in the hallway, and he stalks off after he's locked it behind him. I let myself sit here in silence, eventually lying down on my back and staring up at the ceiling above my head. I know I did the right thing.

"I'm sorry," I whisper aloud, not sure whether I'm apologizing to my mother, or to those nameless people whose lives were taken away as a result of me trying to save my own. "I'm sorry."


	11. Chapter 10

**A/N: Tw for a character death in this chapter. I hope I did it justice; this is the chapter I've been most nervous about posting so far.**

* * *

Aiden gives me my usual ride home after school, and I purposely leave out my encounter with Sloan. I know he still worries about me constantly, and I already feel guilty enough about leaving him behind soon. He'll be a wreck when he realizes I've disappeared, and without me around, the link between he and Chelsea will probably weaken. They get along, but I'm the glue that holds their relationship together. I know that without me, they'll lose contact. And Aiden will be alone with the exception of his family.

I can't dwell on this, though. I care about Aiden but I have to keep my priorities in order. If I can sneak out of the city successfully, then that means I should be able to sneak back in and help others leave. Aiden, Chelsea, my mother, and Spencer's brothers will be at the top of the list. Aiden will just have to stay strong on his own until I can help him. I'd like to get everyone out now, but logic tells me that the more people come along, the more likely it is that we'll get caught.

We spend most of the ride in silence, give or take a couple of one-sentence exchanges, but when he pulls into my driveway and I prepare to get out of his car, he stops me with a hand on my arm. "Do you mind if we talk?"

I pause, and then shrug, settling back down in the passenger's seat and relaxing. "About what?"

He watches me carefully. "Are you… okay?"

I spend a moment trying to think back over the course of the past few weeks. I've been trying my best not to give away what I've been up to, or even that I've been up to something at all, but evidently I haven't done as well of a job as I'd thought. "I'm fine, Aiden." I give him a look that tells him I think he's being weird, even though internally I know his concerns are justified.

"Are you sure?" he presses. "It just seems like you've been off… or like, distant and stuff. Ever since…" he trails off, thinking. "Well, since Madison disappeared, actually. And I miss her too, but… I know this sounds horrible, but we weren't really all that close to her, were we? I mean, we were close to her compared to _other_ people, but that's not saying much since we hardly talk to anyone. And then yesterday you didn't want a ride home… I'm just wondering why it seems so much like what Madison did changed you."

"Madison's long gone now," I point out briskly, narrowing my eyes at him. I know he's just trying to be considerate but now is the worst time to have someone trying to get into my head. If I let one thing slip, my entire plan could blow up in my face. "I've moved on from it. You should, too. I'm sorry that you haven't seen me as much with our new schedules, but you're only going to worry more if you let yourself dwell on every little thing I do that you deem out of the ordinary."

He looks upset by my harsh tone. "I just want to make sure you're not thinking about doing what she did."

I tense up, wary of him. Does he know something? I think Spencer must know he's my Mate after the encounter with Sloan in the hallway, and while it was a bit irrational of me to think for a moment that she'd told _Sloan_ anything about what I showed her, it _would_ make sense for her to go to Aiden, who'd be more inclined to talk to me about it without turning me in.

I try to gauge his expression as I tell him, "I think you're paranoid. I'm just trying to do what everyone keeps telling me to do, Aiden. Keep my head down. Then once I finally shut up, I'm up to something?"

He looks pained, and reaches out for my hand. "I just… I don't want anything to happen to you, okay? I _can't _lose you."

His words are more intense than I expected and I make eye contact with him, frowning slightly as he swallows hard. I never gave lot of thought as to why he's so protective of me, but sitting here while he gazes into my eyes with an intensity that matches his words, I'm certainly thinking about it now.

"You don't understand," he presses when I don't reply. "I don't have _anything_, Ash. Or anyone. There's just you. You're all I have and you're the only person I've been able to protect. Not my mom, not my sister, not my little brother… When they screw up they get fucked up by Patrol like the rest of us, but you- They don't hurt you so much. It's like they go easy on you or something. Like they don't wanna hurt you too badly but they have to do something to look tough, so they hurt you the best they can without doing too much damage. And I know if I'm there, they can beat the shit out of me and you'll hardly get a scratch. I need you around." His face is flushed with emotion now and his teeth are gritted, his jaw tense and his expression open and passionate. "You make me feel like I'm worth something, Ash."

It dawns on me now that I've underestimated what my leaving will do to Aiden. "Aiden… I don't know how to respond to that," I tell him honestly. I feel uncomfortable, my stomach churning unpleasantly and a large, invisible weight settling on my shoulders.

"You don't have to say anything," he replies calmly. "Just…" He trails off, and he breaks our eye contact as his gaze falls to slightly lower on my face. He leans forward slightly.

I'm out of the car before he can blink, hastily telling him, "I'll see you tomorrow," and then closing the car door and high-tailing it into my house. I close the front door behind myself and lean against it, waiting until I hear his car drive off. The second the sound of its engine fades into the distance, I turn and kick at the door with a loud, "_Shit!" _

So Aiden has officially cracked. He's lost his fucking mind; that much is clear. Or just lost control. If I leave him here in Los Angeles, I don't know what the mental ramifications will be for him. But I can't bring him along with me, and I bet that if I tried to, he'd just do his best to prevent me from leaving anyway. I already know convincing Spencer will be hard, but that's nothing compared to how difficult it would be to talk Aiden into it. Me being in constant danger would be his own personal hell. Something tells me he'd lose his mind regardless of whether or not he came with me.

My mother's asleep on the couch when I enter the living room, and I give her a longing look as I pause to watch her sleep, momentarily envisioning an alternative universe where I accepted Sloan's medicine and would be waking her up right now to excitedly give her back her life. Swallowing hard, I walk over to her and silently sink to my knees in front of her face. Her eyes are closed and so is her mouth, an unusual occurrence given her condition. Normally her breathing is open-mouthed and incredibly loud.

I'll need to wake her up to remind her to take her pill in another half-hour. There's a nearly-empty bottle of water on the coffee table just behind me, along with her bottle of pills, which… is empty. That's odd. She should have at least one left to take today even if she's due for a refill.

Furrowing my eyebrows as I examine it, I try to remember when Aiden and I last made the trip to the doctor's to fill her prescription. We do it every thirty days, but I don't think it's been a month. It couldn't have been more than two weeks ago. Where did the other fifteen or so pills go?

I glance under the coffee table, wondering if some of them have fallen out. Yes, they must've. Mom has some trouble opening the bottle sometimes; maybe the cap popped off and the bottle fell and she forgot to pick up some of the pills that fell out. They're white; they blend in with the carpet.

I run my hand over the carpet over and over, confused when I don't feel anything pill-shaped beneath my fingertips. They have to be here. Why aren't they here?

I hop up and go to the kitchen cabinets, avoiding looking at my sleeping mother. Maybe she kept the old bottle, and she grabbed the wrong one when she went to go get her pills, and there's a half-full one in here like there should be. I open the medicine cabinet and sift through it. I check, and then I double-check, and I then I triple-check. When I don't find anything, I stand there for a moment, staring into the medicine cabinet blankly. Almost unconsciously, I move my right hand to my chest and feel my heart there, pounding hard and fast. I'm light-headed, and I sway as I stand there. Abruptly, I turn and make my way back to my mother, collapsing by her side again and staring at her still face, my lips parted as I try to keep my breathing even.

"Mom?" I ask, my voice so, so small. She's still sleeping. I reach out and touch her shoulder. It's cold. I shake it, slightly, and speak louder. She must not have heard me. "Mom, wake up." There's no response. I'm breathing so hard now I feel like I might pass out, and frustrated tears prick at the corners of my eyes. "Mom, you have to take your pill." I remember that the bottle's empty and I tell her, "I think you lost some of them, but Aiden and I can get more. I'll go to his house right now and I'll make him take me to get more, okay? You just have to wake up and tell me to do that and I'll do that."

I reach out to touch her face and I'm shaking so hard. My vision's going blurry and it takes me a moment to realize it's because I'm crying.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know you'd ran out," I try to say, ignoring the way my throat's closing up. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. You didn't tell me. Please…" I slide my hand down to her chest and feel the way it's not rising and falling. "Please wake up." I blink and several tears slide down my cheeks. I'm crying so hard I can't even see her anymore. "Don't leave me here alone."

She lies there, silently, and I finally make myself stand up. I take a blanket resting over the armrest of the couch and unfold it, then lay it down over my mother's still form, tucking her in. I step back when I'm done and watch her, almost blankly. And then I turn and walk out of my house in a daze, heading down the road purely on instinct. Some part of me is telling me that it thinks I should go get help. The rest of me feels blank and empty.

I don't know how long I walk for, but when I reach a front door and look up at the house in front of me, it's not Aiden's, like I thought it would be. I don't know whose it is, actually. I ring the doorbell anyway.

Glen Carlin answers it, looking confused. "Ashley Davies?"

I blink at him, my reaction time slow. Finally, I acknowledge him. "Glen."

He stares at me with concern. I think he can tell something's wrong. "What are you doing here? Are you alright?"

"I don't think so," I tell him slowly. My cheeks must be tear-streaked because he tells me it looks like I've been crying. "Oh," is my reply to that. I feel like I've shut down on myself. I can't even think about why I've come here right now.

I must look pretty messed up, because Glen ushers me inside. At some point, I find myself on the couch in the Carlins' living room. Glen murmurs something to someone I can't see and footsteps disappear into the kitchen. Clay is in the living room, too, and looks on in confusion as Glen stands in front of me, that same concerned look still on his face.

"Glen, what's going on?"

"I don't know," I hear him reply. He looks to me and very slowly asks, "Ashley, how did you get here?"

"I don't know," I parrot, my tone devoid of emotion. "Just did."

"Did something happen?" he asks next. "Is something wrong?"

It takes me a moment. I don't want to answer. Answering makes me face it.

I open and close my mouth for a moment, caught between knowing the answer and not wanting to say it. "Yes," I finally acknowledge, and then start crying again, harder than I ever have before.

A third person joins me on the couch and hesitantly wraps an arm around me while using the other arm to set down a mug of what looks like hot chocolate. I'd forgotten it's January. It must have been freezing outside.

Even through my blurry vision, I can see blonde hair and so I know the person trying to comfort me must be Spencer. She must be so lost right now, but she wraps her other arm around me anyway and pulls me into her. I grip her so tightly it must hurt her, but she doesn't complain as I bury my face in her neck and sob into it.

They sit in silence with me for I don't know how long, letting me get it all out. It's dark by the time my sobs turn into silent shakes and shudders, and when I finally pull away from Spencer, the shoulder of her shirt is soaked with snot and tears. "I'm sorry," I tell her, voice thick as a couple of strays tears make their way down my cheeks.

"It's okay," she tells me, so softly and gently. Just the soothing tone of her voice makes my crying lessen, and I appreciate it for a moment before I can feel more tears coming up again. I try to distract myself, looking around for Glen and Clay, but they've disappeared. I don't know how long they've been gone. Spencer watches me carefully, reaching up to wipe my tears away with her thumb. I feel a heavy weight settle in my chest and take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. That weight will be there for a while –maybe even permanently- but I'm done crying now. Spencer seems to realize this after a minute or so, and carefully asks me, "Can you tell me what happened, Ashley?"

I swallow hard and don't answer. I don't know if I can say the words. "My mom," I tell her, squeezing my eyes shut and sucking in another breath. This one's shaky. I told myself I was done crying.

"Something happened to your mom?" she asks. I nod. "Is she hurt?" I shake my head and she opens her mouth, probably to ask another question. I hold up a hand to stop her. I can't say the whole truth but I think I can get out some of it.

"She…" I hesitate, feeling my eyes well up again. Determinedly, I shake it off. "She…"

Spencer's eyes search mine and I focus on the blue or her irises, trying to escape from the turmoil in my head. I do my best to distance the rest of myself from my head and my mouth, to try to not think as I lick my lips and they part again.

"She… died."


	12. Chapter 11

**A/N: Sorry, guys! I know this was way later than usual. I haven't had a lot of time to write lately.**

* * *

I'm sitting on the couch numbly now, pretending I can't hear the faint whispers of Glen, Clay, and Spencer as they argue in the kitchen. Glen's saying that legally I'm supposed to be with Aiden's family right now, Clay just wants me out before I get them all into trouble, and Spencer thinks I'm too fragile to go anywhere right now. I don't know who's right. I don't know anything anymore.

From what I can tell, they settle on a compromise: Glen will leave tonight to inform Aiden's family of what's happened, then will inform his superiors in Patrol that I'm with his family for the night and then will be staying with Aiden's until I can "adjust", whatever that means. I'll get the day off of school tomorrow to get everything packed, and so will Aiden, to help me move in with him.

Spencer comes back eventually with the reheated mug of hot chocolate and starts to tell me what's going on. I interrupt her. "I heard."

She nods, unsurprised, and then sets the mug down on the table in front of me. I'm not going to drink it. Perhaps she's realized that by now. I probably should, though; my lips are dry and I have to keep licking them. Spencer sits in silence with me as the minutes tick by. At some point, I vaguely register Glen leaving through the front door.

"I'm sorry," she finally tells me. "What you're going through must be so terrible."

I don't reply. Every time I blink I'm left with the image of my mom lying on our living room couch, unmoving.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

I shake my head silently.

"I'm sorry," she says again, and then seems to lapse into her own thoughts for a while. "You might have noticed it's just the three of us," she finally says. "I can't remember anything about my own parents."

"At least they're alive," I whisper. She lets out an audible breath.

"I don't know that they are."

"Then at least you don't have the memory of losing them," I reply. She doesn't have a response to that.

Eventually, she takes me upstairs and shows me to her room, and I borrow a pair of pajamas from her. We share the bed for the night, but I'm so buried deep within myself that I hardly acknowledge her. I lay flat on my back and stare up at the ceiling for what feels like hours, my mind blank. At one point, Spencer's voice drifts to my ears from the other side of the bed as she questions, "Ashley?"

I take a moment to reply. "Yes?"

I can practically feel her hesitation from here. I hear her shift slightly. "How did you know where my house was?"

I blink up at the ceiling and ponder the question. My expression doesn't change and my voice sounds empty when I reply. "I remembered."

I hear her suck in a breath sharply at that, but that's the last time she makes a sound for the rest of the night. At some point I find myself acknowledging that for all her instinctive knowledge about how to comfort me, ultimately, she's still nothing more than a glorified stranger.

That thought saddens me all the more.

* * *

Aiden picks me up the next morning and takes me to my house. I don't want to go inside, but the thought of the objects under my bed get me out of his car and to my front door. Patrol has gotten rid of… has taken my mom, and are burying her today. She won't have a funeral, only a grave in the cemetery closest to my house.

I avoid looking at the couch in the living room as I pass it to head to my bedroom. Aiden leaves me alone to pack, and I lock the door to my room to give myself some privacy. Rather than draining me of my motivation to escape Los Angeles, now that I can think somewhat rationally my mom's actions have only increased my drive to find a way out. I won't let myself suffer the same fate she did. I won't quit. I just have to shove down what I feel now and move on. I have the rest of my life to mourn.

I consider the objects hidden under my bed as I pack what I'll need while I'm staying at Aiden's. This house is now property of Aiden's family, which means that once they deem me emotionally suited to do so, I should be free to return to my own room. All the more reason to convince everyone I'm moving past this. But I don't know when I'll be able to get back here. The key to my house will be in Aiden's parents' possession. Without my journal, any dreams I have will go unrecorded, and I'd hoped to use the small book to convince Spencer of the truth. But can I risk taking any of this stuff with me? I may not be able to find a spot to hide it at Aiden's, and I know it'll be safe here. Perhaps it's not worth the risk. After all, I'd really like to have my journal, but recording my dreams isn't necessarily a necessity right now. And there's no guarantee I couldn't convince Spencer _without _the book. Especially after I got her attention when I mysteriously knew the way to her house yesterday.

My mind made up, I leave my hiding place untouched and finish packing. My plan's been delayed, but I can still do this. Now I just have to find the perfect balance between showing the sadness I feel and appearing to be emotionally stable. If I'm too happy, they'll know I'm putting up a front, and if I let my sadness show too much, they won't let me live in my house again.

I mentally lay it all out in my head. Step One: Figure out Spencer's birthday. Step Two: Act emotionally stable; get the key to my house back. Step Three: Use the calculator to find my escape route. Step Four: Convince Spencer to go with me. Step Five: Get the fuck out of dodge.

And in the meantime, avoid capture by Patrol, avoid pissing off Sloan, and avoid making Aiden suspicious despite the fact that we're now living under the same roof.

No problem.

* * *

Mrs. Dennison shows me to my room when Aiden and I arrive with a giant bag filled with my clothes in tow. Aiden lives with his mother and father, his eleven-year-old brother, Justin, his pregnant twenty-year-old sister, Maribel, and her twenty-year-old Mate, Nathan. Aiden's already told me that he's planned on moving into his brother's room to give me some space, so I'll be getting my own room in the form of Aiden's old bedroom. It's a relief; Nathan and Maribel share a room so I'd assumed Aiden and I would be forced to do so as well.

With my privacy secured for however long I'm staying here, the biggest discomfort is the looks I get from his family each time I leave my new room. My entire first day feels like a suffocating mixture of "I'm sorry for your loss"es, sympathetic looks, and well-meaning arm-touches or pats on the shoulder. I just want to be left alone, and thankfully when I share this with Aiden, he takes it upon himself to make sure his family backs off. Only Maribel visits me, then, as she's always had a way with words and a soft, warm personality. We talk about the baby forming inside her and I get the sense that Nathan wouldn't have been her first choice of Mate, but that she's grown to appreciate him in her own way. It helps, knowing that there are people here who still make do as best as they can and that can function as a healthy family and bring a child into the world. It gives me hope that when I'm gone, Aiden will be able to have that with someone else who at the very least appreciates him. But maybe I'm too idealistic. Even the happiest of young couples was still ultimately forced to be together, after all.

I start back at school the following day, accept the practically requisite apologies and condolences from the classmates who are familiar enough with me to offer them, and go through my day almost robotically until I reach lunchtime. Spencer returns to my table, then, and sits down across from me with a small, sympathetic smile. "Hey."

"You can stop that," I tell her immediately, and her smile falls slightly. "I've gotten about two-dozen of those today and even more yesterday. I'm up to my ears in apologies, too. No idea how everyone knows about what happened, either."

"Oh," she seems embarrassed, and nods slightly. "I'm sorry."

I look up at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Ugh, sorry." She winces. "Sorry!" She winces again and shakes her head. "I'll just stop talking."

"Wise choice," I agree, one corner of my mouth tilting upwards slightly. She smiles back, wider than mine, like she's happy to see me even attempt a smile. I figure out now's as good a time as any to pop the question, so to speak. "Spencer," I ask, trying to sound innocent, "Do you know when your birthday is?"

Her eyes dart to the nearest Patrol guard and her smile fades. She looks a little confused. "Of course not; how would I?"

I look down, trying to hide my disappointment. I can't tell if she's lying for the guards' benefit or if she's telling the truth. There's no more I can say here, though. It was dumb to ask.

"Why?" she adds, clearly still confused. I look her directly in the eyes, hoping she can see the hidden meaning in my response.

"I'd _really _like to know," I tell her. Her eyebrows furrow and she looks away from me, silently eating her food. I can tell she's uncomfortable. "Do you think-?" I start to ask, hoping to convince her to meet me after school just one more time, but she cuts me off.

"I really don't know it." She shrugs, shaking her head. "Could be today, for all I know. No one ever told me."

I nod my understanding calmly. Inwardly, I'm panicking. Nice going, Dad; she doesn't remember her birthday. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? "So… not even the year?"

"The years are different now," Spencer reminds me. "I mean, I'm either 17 or 18, aren't I? But that doesn't tell me anything about what the years used to be like."

I nod again. I know from my own birth certificate what the years used to be like. I'm 18. So I've got a 50/50 chance of being right about Spencer's birth year. But there's no way I could guess the month and day correctly, and I don't know how that calculator works. Maybe I only get one guess. It'd be risky enough just guessing the year. I should be certain about the exact date before I try. But unless Spencer has a birth certificate hidden around her house, I don't know how to find that date, and while Glen's nice for a Patrol guard, there's no way in hell I'm breaking into the house of someone who's in Patrol to look for a document that's either hidden in an unknown location or very well may not even exist. I'm completely stuck now, unless I can think of another place where I'll find Spencer's birth certificate.

As Spencer and I eat in silence, my brain works overtime and I try to think of every option I can. A doctor? No, doctors are just as brainwashed as teachers but they still aren't given birth dates. I need to go higher up; think of someone even more loyal to the Leaders. Teachers, no. Patrol grunts won't know anything either; they just do what they're told. But the officers…

I'm sure I look intrigued as it finally clicks, and I hide a vaguely incredulous smile as I realize what I'm going to have to do.

I know where I can find the document that will tell me Spencer's birth date.


	13. Chapter 12

**A/N: I gotta say, I'm surprised no one figured out what Ashley was gonna do! I snuck in a couple throwaway lines about it here or there hoping someone would remember haha ;)**

* * *

"Chelsea, please do this for me."

"No, Ashley."

"Just one distraction," I hiss hastily as we wind our way through the crowded hallways of King High. "_Please_. You have no idea how important this is."

She sighs. "I have no doubt that you think it's important-"

"It is!"

"You just lost your mother, Ashley, and this is crazy. I know you're going through a rough time; you're not thinking rationally."

"Oh, believe me, I'm rational. I'm like a one-thousand on the rational scale. This is the most rational I've ever fucking been," I tell her with an edge to my voice, a little angry at what she's insinuating. "And I'm doing this whether you help me or not."

"Why the hell do you need to…" she trails off, and lowers her voice even as we walk, "…do what you're trying to do, anyway?"

"I can't tell you."

"And I can't help you," she finishes shortly, giving me a strange look before leaving me behind in the hallway. I sigh, pausing to watch her go, and notice a guard watching me suspiciously from just a few feet away. Good; he can be suspicious all he wants. I need Patrol to think I'm up to something for my new plan to work, anyway. But what I need most is someone who will help me. I should've known Chelsea'd be a dead end, but as long as she doesn't rat me out, I suppose I haven't lost anything by asking her. Now she's just even more certain than ever that I've bitten off more than I can chew with Patrol.

I suppose this means I'll have to ask Spencer for help. All I can hope is that she hears me out more than Chelsea did.

I try to blow off Aiden after school, but he's having none of it this time, not when I'm "so fragile" at the moment. What follows is a silent, awkward ride back to his house during which I rotate between glaring at him and glaring out the window, hoping to guilt him into taking me back to King High so that I can walk from there to Spencer's house. If I _am _going to ask Spencer to do this, I have a short window of time. If I can get to her house within the next week or so, I can use the excuse that I'm having an emotional breakdown and have no one else to turn to. However, the fact that I showed up to the Carlin's house a second time upset will most likely get back to the Dennisons through Glen, then, which is part of the reason I didn't want to ask Spencer to help me, but I suppose I just have to do this one stage at a time at this point. If I can enlist Spencer's help, I can get her birth date, most likely in exchange for having to wait longer to get the key to my house back.

Aiden and I get back to his house and I go to my room, ignoring everyone on the way and intending on spending the afternoon alone, but Aiden follows me, catching the door with his foot before I can shut it. "Leave me alone," I snap at him, but he's stronger than me and he forces it open, stepping inside and then closing it behind the two of us. "And stop treating me like something's wrong with me. I'm not a kid; I don't need you to babysit."

"Ash, your mom just _died_," he stresses. "Nobody's just okay after that."

"She didn't die; she killed herself," I snarl, and then almost immediately regret it. Aiden looks surprised and that doesn't shock me. Nobody but myself and whoever found and examined my mom would know exactly how she died. I can feel my bottom lip starting to tremble and I hate myself for being so weak. "She checked out, Aiden," I tell him. "She stopped fighting. She was stuck in that damn house all day and she had nothing to do but die. So if you think for a second that forcing me to sit here alone is a good thing for me-"

"You're not alone," he cuts in weakly. "You have me."

"What if I don't want you?" I counter angrily. His face falls. I feel a pang of guilt for hurting him, but keep my expression hardened. "What if I want something else, Aiden? What if I don't want to be trapped here in this city, and I don't want to go get served my daily dose of bullshit at a school I don't need, and I don't want to be in here in this house with you? I didn't choose any of this. And when I try to make a difference, no one will fucking help me! Everyone just accepts that this is the way things are. And then you tell me I'm just upset that my mom died. Of course I am, but that doesn't change the fact that if you don't let me out of this goddamn house right now, I'm going to end up no different from her. I need my space, and I need to go. Right now."

His expression is odd and I think it's because he's trying not to cry. I don't feel guilty anymore; I know I'm right. Every day I stay in Los Angeles I'm feeling more and more suffocated and my need to get out just gets stronger and stronger. I stare Aiden down and after a tense moment, he steps aside and reaches for the door, pulling it open and then holding it there for me. He's letting me go.

"Thank you," I say shortly, and leave, answering the questioning looks I get on my way out with "I'm going for a walk."

I practice what I'm going to say and do all the way to Spencer's, running through lines in my head and forming potential facial expressions until I'm right up at their front door. I prepare to face Glen as I ring the doorbell, squeezing out a few tears and hitting my face a little to make it red.

Spencer answers the door, and then looks surprised. "Ashley?" She notices my tears. "Are you okay?"

"Are Glen and Clay here?" I ask, a small quiver in my voice.

"Glen's working until late tonight," Spencer tells me. "And Clay's here but-"

She stops talking when she sees the way I immediately cut the crap and slide past her into the house. It's crunch time. Glen's not here which means a massive change of plans; I can explain a lot more now that I don't have to worry about him overhearing.

Clay walks into the living room, having heard the doorbell, and starts to ask who's here. Then he sees me. "Hey, you're not supposed to-!"

"No," I cut him off simply, holding out a hand palm-up in his direction and then turning to Spencer. "We need to talk."

She looks confused. "About what?"

"Everything." I turn to Clay. "If you know what's good for you, you'll go to your room and stay there and pretend you didn't see me." He looks at me incredulously and my serious expression doesn't waver. "I'm really not fucking around here. Get out."

He hesitates, and then leaves. I turn to Spencer and she stares back, looking caught between disbelief and surprise. "Is there any way anyone could hear anything we're saying here?" I ask. "Any cameras, any recording devices, anything you know about like that?"

She shakes her head. "Not that I know of."

"Good. We're getting out of here."

She looks to the front door, confused.

"Not here," I tell her, gesturing to the living room. "Here. Los Angeles. You were wrong." I pause. "Or… right; I don't know. But there is something more out there, and I aim to find it."

"You came here to tell me this?" she questions, eyebrows furrowed. "I thought we already had this conversation. Unless you have proof-"

"And I do." I hesitate. "Not with me, but I do." She looks unconvinced. "That small book I had? Remember it? The blank one." I get a grudging nod from her and continue. "It needed a password and once I figured it out, that thing lit up like a lava lamp. Remember when I blacked out with you that day? I haven't had another one since then, and I don't really know why I've been having them, but somehow, that blackout gave me the code. When I came home that night I figured it out; I just haven't got the chance to tell you until now."

I'm not surprised to see she still looks suspicious. "So even if this is true, why show up today?"

"Because I need your help," I tell her. "There were instructions written in the book, explaining how to get out of here. My dad wrote them. That calculator is actually a keypad, and I need a passcode for it. The code is six digits: your birth date."

She balks at that. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would it be me? Look, I-"

"Because we knew each other," I cut her off, careful not to reveal too much. I don't know how she'd react to the whole truth. "Before the memory wipe."

She opens and closes her mouth for a second, speechless. Finally, she asks, "How do you know?"

"The book said so," I half-lie. Technically, it did insinuate it. "It used your full name, and it mentioned your parents. Arthur and Paula."

She turns serious as soon as I say her parents' names. I had no way of knowing that information unless I'm telling the truth.

"What else did this book say?" she asks, and I can tell she's beginning to believe me.

"That if I can get your birth date, we can enter that into the calculator-keypad thing and it'll give us our escape route. From there, the compass I had should point us to where we're supposed to go. That's why it doesn't point north. We need to go east."

"We," she echoes carefully, not taking her eyes off of mine. "You want me to come with you."

I swallow hard. "…I'd like that, yeah."

She hesitates. "My brothers…"

"We'd come back for them," I tell her quickly. "I want to save my friends, too. But this could be our shot, Spencer. I know it's dangerous, and I know it's risky, but I also know you wanted to believe you could have a chance at freedom one day. This is your chance."

Her eyes find her feet and I stare at her intently. I can practically see the wheels turning in her head as she mulls it over. When she finally looks up, there's a certain mischievous spark in her eye that I haven't seen there before. It makes my heart rate speed up and I barely smother a smile, enjoying the glimpse I'm getting of the Spencer I once fell in love with.

"What do you need me to do?" she asks, and I let my grin show.


	14. Chapter 13

**A/N: This update's a bit short so I'll try to get the next one up more quickly than usual to make up for it :)**

* * *

It's four am and I'm searching Aiden's house for the key to mine, trying to be as quiet as possible. If things go as planned, today will be a big day. Spencer and I could be on our way out of Los Angeles tonight. Just the thought sends a shot of adrenaline to every inch of my body.

The Dennisons are hiding my key under the welcome mat by the front door, I soon discover. Of course.

I leave it there with a roll of my eyes and return to my room to try and go back to sleep. I'll definitely need my energy for tomorrow. The next twenty-four hours are going to be an adventure of epic proportions. And it's only just the beginning. "I'm coming, Dad," I murmur to the ceiling, and then bask in the peaceful silence that follows.

Aiden tries to start a conversation the next morning on the way to school.

"Did you get what you needed yesterday?"

Inwardly, I smile. "Yes, I did."

He nods awkwardly. There's a pause. "You came home late last night."

"It was a long walk," I answer shortly.

"Are you…" He swallows, then, and glances to me. "…Are you happier, then?"

I suppose in his own uncomfortable way he's trying to show he still cares, even after my outburst. I do feel a little bad about it in hindsight, but mostly I'm upset with myself for revealing so much of my thoughts to him. It would be unsurprising if he starts watching me more closely now, especially since I know he was already concerned that I'd try to flee Los Angeles. "I'm better," I tell him. He nods again and doesn't ask me anything else.

I get through two classes at school before I catch Spencer and Sloan in the same vicinity. She's by her locker and he's just down the hallway, talking to a Patrol grunt with his back to me. Spencer and I meet each other's gazes from across the hall and I give her a small nod. Go time.

I turn and wave to get the grunt's attention, and he looks confused for a moment before I calmly shift my wave to a silent "fuck you", my middle finger stuck prominently in the air. His confusion quickly turns to anger, and Sloan notices, abruptly spinning around to look for suspicious activity. I hastily turn away and pretend to be reading a flier pinned to a board against the wall behind me. A moment later, I glance back and he's turned away, trying to hold a conversation with the grunt again despite the other man's obvious chagrined look.

Hiding a grin, I wave again, easily regaining the grunt's attention. I point at him, then at Sloan, and then mimic giving a blow job. He turns beet-red and tries to push past Sloan to get at me, but Sloan holds him back, clearly baffled, and then turns around to see me standing there, several yards down the hallway. His eyes narrow and he shoves the grunt back, where he stumbles and nearly falls against several surprised students. Sloan marches right toward me and then latches his hand onto my bicep with an oh-so-familiar tightened grip. I'm treasuring the feeling right now, but I try my best to look pained.

"Why am I not surprised," he deadpans, looking down at me with disdain. "Ashley Davies. Tell me, how did turning down my offer work out for your mother, hmm?"

I clench my teeth together to prevent myself from saying something I'll regret. I want to get in trouble, not seriously hurt or killed. I need to be annoying, not defiant. "Better than bad hygiene's working out for you," I retort. Several students overhear me and have to hide their grins. Sloan's grip gets more painful and he immediately yanks me down the hallway to his office. Perfect.

Once inside, he practically throws me into the chair across from his desk, and then looms over me intimidatingly. I've long since noticed the pattern. He likes to make his victims feel as small as possible and make himself look as big as possible. "I'm actually glad you decided to act like a little brat today," he tells me. "It's been a while since I've reminded you who your superiors are."

"Whoa there," I reply, looking to him with surprise. "Am I in trouble here or is this the beginning of a bad porno?"

He turns as red as the grunt did and attempts to sputter out a response. A moment later, a loud scream comes from somewhere out in the hallway, and Sloan swivels around curiously. A second scream comes, and he turns and glares at me. "Stay here," he demands, and then hurries out of the room.

The second he's gone, I immediately leap to my feet and begin to survey the file cabinets scattered around the room, filled to the brim with files and student records. They're labeled, each with a different letter or segment of the alphabet, and I frantically look for a "C". My eyes finally fall on it just as I hear Spencer's voice from out in the hallway. "I just saw a spider. It was right there; I swear!"

I hurry over to the file cabinet and pull it open as quietly as possible. It still makes some noise and I hesitate, but there's too much commotion going on outside; Sloan can't hear me in here. I don't have to open it too much, as it turns out; "Car" isn't too far in and I flip past Cabrera, Caesar, Cagan, Cage, Calahan, Camble, Cantrell…

"C'mon, I murmur, my anxiety only slightly eased by the sounds of a second girls' voice from outside as she declares frantically that she's allergic to spiders. Capek, Carey, Carinio… Carlin!

Clay's file is there too but I move past it and pull up the next file: Spencer's. I open it and flip through it frantically, skipping past report cards and behavioral reports, and then eventually come to a strange paper that I glimpse pictures of her mother and father at the top of. Making a split-second decision, I snatch that paper out, fold it up, and pocket it. When I glance back at the file, the next page is her birth certificate. I grin immediately and grab it as well, shove it into my pocket, and then hastily put the file back and close the cabinet just as the commotion outside appears to be dying down. I hurry back to my seat and am almost completely sitting down when Sloan returns. Luckily, he's too busy rubbing at his forehead in frustration to notice, and when he sits back down at his desk, he reaches for the phone sitting on top of it. Halfway to bringing the phone to his ear, he finally looks at me. I stare back.

"Get out," he deadpans, sounding tired, and I happily follow his orders, not believing my luck. Spencer's in the hallway when I get back, waiting for me, and I nod just once to her as I pass by. The corners of her lips tug upwards imperceptibly.

We're getting out of here tonight.


	15. Chapter 14

Aiden drives me home, watching me suspiciously the whole way. I know I'm antsier than usual but I can't help it. I've been on edge since I hijacked Spencer's file, especially at school today. Anything could've gone wrong at any time, and I spent every other minute in my classes glancing at the door out of paranoia, half-expecting Patrol to come for me at any moment. Things just went too smoothly for it to be this simple. I have a sinking feeling something bad is going to happen but I just don't know what it is or when it'll come.

We get home and I see myself to my room, as usual, grudgingly setting my backpack aside and beginning the wait for darkness. I'd have liked to leave immediately after getting back here, but between Spencer and I needing to escape without our families noticing and needing the cover of night to get to my house without being seen, we both agreed it was best to meet up at midnight. I'm already packed, having had to do it anyway in order to move to Aiden's, and if I can take her at her word, Spencer should be doing that right about now. And I think I can.

Initially it was easy to doubt Spencer, but she proved today that she's invested in this to some degree. She might get cold feet later on, but honestly it's too late for her to turn back now, whether or not she realizes it. I stole things from her file. There's a visible connection between us now in Patrol's eyes, because eventually they'll discover some of her file is missing, and Sloan will do what he does best and immediately assume it was my doing. So if I'm in trouble, she's in trouble, and I definitely have a habit of getting into trouble. Hopefully she's at our meeting place at midnight tonight, because if not, I can't delay this any longer. Our time started ticking down the moment I stole those papers.

Now that I'm alone, I finally pull them out and unfold them. First, I look at Spencer's birth certificate. It matches mine in appearance and I let my eyes run across her name and the names of her parents before I finally look to her birth date. I commit the date to memory and then fold the paper back up and pocket it again. Next is the second document, the one I grabbed in a split-second decision. At the top, there they are: Paula and Arthur Carlin. Paula looks like Spencer more than Arthur does, with her blonde hair and bright blue eyes and a smile that seems to guarantee there's more to her than meets the eye. Arthur's hair and eyes are dark and he looks so kind in his picture, something that baffles me concerning the nature of it. There's a giant "WANTED" in red letters at the top of the page. This is an advertisement for their arrest, with a reward even listed at the bottom in the form of… wow.

"One million dollars?" I mouth silently. "_Each_?"

The explanation for this is obvious when I see what they're wanted for, but the words below their pictures still stun me. Paula is identified as being wanted for eliciting terrorism in others and for providing medical care to enemies of the Leaders. She must have been a doctor. And Arthur… he's wanted for heading the entire Los Angeles sect of the rebellion. My jaw drops when I read that. Spencer's parents led the rebellion here. And with my father being so close to them, there's no doubt he was pretty high up in the rebel hierarchy as well. Perhaps we've both been watched more closely by Patrol than I thought, if our parents really were what this paper suggests they were. If this was in Spencer's file, they clearly took note of it.

Patrol can't be watching us on a regular basis, or else they would've busted us for our meet-up in the library, but could they be watching our houses? Do they know about my trip to Spencer's house the other day?

"Fuck," I mutter at the idea, running a hand through my hair and then pocketing the second paper. We could have even less time than I thought. The instant I leave Aiden's house they could come for us. But it's a risk I have to take now. It all comes down to the fact that it's too late to turn back.

The minutes tick by and I eventually leave the room to have dinner with Aiden's family, eating as much as I can to get my strength up. I don't speak much and Aiden's eyes remain trained on me for what feels like most of the meal. Afterwards, I return to my room again and finish gathering my clothes. Once I'm sure I have everything, I run through my plan for tonight in my head over and over again, waiting for the telltale signs that everyone has gone to sleep.

Finally, the last bedroom door closes around eleven o'clock, as usual. I wait thirty more minutes and it feels like each minute lasts an hour. Finally, the clock on my nightstand clicks to eleven-thirty and I put on my tennis shoes and hoist my bag over my shoulder. I leave my room as quietly as possible and silently close the door behind me. A moment later, I'm at the front door, and I set my bag down and then crouch by the welcome mat, lifting it up and peering under. My eyebrows furrow. The key isn't there.

"I knew it."

I stand up and whirl around to see Aiden standing a few feet away, jaw tensed. The key to my front door barely pokes out though the fingers of his clenched fist.

"I knew something had to be up."

"Aiden-" I start, my heart sinking, but he cuts me off as his eyes land on my bag.

"You're running away."

The silence is tense and awkward, and I swallow hard. He looks angry, but I can tell he's mostly upset, can hear the silent "you're leaving me" he wants to add.

"Not away," I finally tell him. "I'm running to."

He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated, and quietly hisses, "There's nothing out there, Ash! Give it up! You walk out that door and you die!"

"Will you say anything to anyone if I do?" I question him, my gaze locking with his. He swallows audibly.

"No."

"Then I have a chance," I tell him, crossing the room until we're standing directly in front of each other. "You can give me that chance, Aiden. Give me the key."

I hold out my hand and he pulls his back. "What do you need that's at your house?" he asks, demandingly.

"If I tell you it'll only put you in danger," I respond truthfully. My hand is still extended towards him, and he shakes his head.

"I won't let you commit suicide," he tells me. I let out a bitter laugh.

"You wanna talk about suicide? Let's talk about suicide, Aiden. _Staying here _is suicide. Waiting around until I put the wrong toe out of line is suicide. Letting them beat me to a pulp and drain all the will to live out of me is fucking suicide, Aiden, and I've seen that with my own eyes, so don't you dare try to tell me what will and won't kill me. If they're gonna kill me I'd rather go out on my own terms. I'd rather end it now while I still have some hope left." I jerk my hand with emphasis. "So stop making this about your happiness with me, give me the goddamn key, and let me die the way I want."

His eyes are shiny with the oncoming signs of tears and he shakes his head helplessly. "I can't lose you, Ash."

"This isn't about you," I tell him calmly. He tries again, he's desperate now.

"Please stay here. Stay with me. I won't let them hurt you. I promise I won't, if you'll just stay." He shuts his eyes and a tear slides down his cheek. "I _love _you."

I take a moment to absorb the scene in front of me. Aiden must be a head taller than me and almost twice as wide, but he suddenly seems no larger than his little brother. "No," I begin, and I can see that shatter him even more. "If you really loved me, you'd let me do this," I tell him solemnly. "You'd give me that key and you'd be strong and move on. You'd let them give you someone new-"

"I don't want anyone else," he interrupts, but I ignore him.

"And you'd live the life you want with someone who wants the same. Because I can't live the way you want to live, Aiden." I glance to the clock to see that this conversation has taken over ten minutes now. I need to leave soon or else I'll be late to meet Spencer. "I have to go. Let me go." He stares at me with tear-filled eyes as I reach forward and grab his hand, gently trying to pry his fist open. But he's too strong for me. "Let me go, Aiden." I try again, harder, and his fingers slowly come apart this time, though I can hear him quietly crying above me. His hand unfolds until it's flat, exposing his open palm, and I take the key from him and step back.

Wordlessly, I turn away from him and put the key in my pocket, then grab my bag and let the strap of it rest over my shoulder. "Goodbye," I murmur to Aiden as he stares back wordlessly with a tear-streaked face, and then I'm out through his front door and slowly pulling it shut behind me. I stand there on his porch for a moment in silence, letting out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. My ears prick as a quiet, mechanical sound reaches my ears; a sound I'd have never heard if there had been even one other sound to mask it.

I turn in its direction, squinting into the darkness, and then my eyes catch an almost imperceptible movement at the top corner of Aiden's porch. The camera's so small that even after hearing it move, I still don't think I'd have noticed it had the idea of its presence not occurred to me earlier tonight.

"Shit," I murmur, staring into it as it focuses in on me. I stand still for a moment, overly aware of the bag hanging from my shoulder that's practically broadcasting my intensions even as I stand here. I hear sirens in the distance and they snap me to attention as I repeat my curse. "Shit!"

Then I shoot off the porch with an amazing quickness, bag bouncing at my side and the stuff in my pocket weighing heavily on my mind as my feet hit the pavement and I begin to run.

* * *

My chest is tight and I'm panting harder than I thought possible and my throat is burning when I finally reach Spencer and I's meeting place; directly between hers and Aiden's houses and on the way to mine. She's there already, hiding in the shadows, and looks to have been there for a few minutes now, despite the urgency I know she must've felt. There's a backpack on her back and it looks filled to the brim. She's kept her word but we may both have to pay the price for it after all.

"What's going on?" she asks me when I arrive, panting and exhausted. She's not out of breath at all; she's had the luxury I don't have of getting the chance to rest for a moment. She still looks terrified, though.

"Cameras," I barely manage to get out. "At our houses. No time to explain." I gesture for her to follow me as the sirens only grow louder. Patrol could be upon us any minute now.

My legs feel rubbery and my breathing is more labored than ever, but I force myself to run again, heading in the direction of my house. It must be at least a mile away, though; even if we were running at full speed it'd take five to ten minutes to get there. The cars will be here in less than five, by the sounds of it. We won't make it. Not like this.

"Stop," I demand abruptly, pausing in the middle of the street and throwing an arm out to stop Spencer. She looks over at me wildly.

"Are you crazy? They'll kill us if they catch us; we need to go!"

"I know," I breathe out, struggling for air. "I'm out of breath. Can't run." I dig into my pocket and hand its contents over to a confused Spencer. "You can… Go to my house… key will unlock it. Stuff is under my bed, under a floorboard." I suck in another breath, hardly believing I'm doing this. I hardly know her. Spencer looks like she's going to cry. I think she understands what I'm doing. "Your birth date's on the certificate, enter the six digits into the calculator you find. It's the month, then day, then last two of the year." She shakes her head at me but I put a hand on her arm. "We can't both go, ok? Not on foot with them right behind us. It was my idea so I should take the fall."

"You were the one who figured everything out!" she argues. "We can both still make it if-"

I shake my head and cut her off. "The compass you find will show you the direction to go. Just follow the arrow. Take the small book; that'll help, and my journal might help, too." It dawns on me that this will probably be the last time I see her. "And Spencer, I-"

"I'm not leaving you," she cuts me off weakly.

I stare at her for a moment, trying to take in every inch of her face so I can commit it to memory. I've seen that face so many times before, I know now, and I wish I could remember it all. Maybe when I die I'll get my memories back. That's a comforting thought.

"You need to go," I finally tell her, the growing volume of the sirens punctuating my words. "I'm staying here no matter what, so unless you want it to be for nothing, you'll go."

She hesitates, but I can see she knows I'm right. She may want to believe we could both survive, but with my decision made, her only options are to die with me or to make sure my sacrifice isn't in vain. "Go," I urge, and it's enough. She stares back at me for a moment, lip trembling, and then nods once and turns away, her long legs taking her down the road in the direction of my house faster than I could've ever gone myself. I watch her until she's barely visible anymore in the darkness, and then I drop my bag to the ground and turn so that my back's to Spencer, walking down the road in the opposite direction until the sirens grow so loud that I can't hear anything else anymore. I can't even hear myself speak when I murmur to myself, "Time to go out with a giant fucking bang, Ashley. Make it good."

Less than two minutes later, Patrol cars come skidding around the corner in the distance and then head right for me, sirens blazing and headlights shining right at me. The light grows brighter and brighter as they close in until my vision is all white. All I can see is whiteness.

And soon, all I can see is blackness.


	16. Chapter 15

**A/N: I'm a few chapters ahead now as far as writing, so updates should be a bit faster for the next few chapters.**

* * *

_I'm 16 and the leaves covering my driveway remind me that it's October as Aiden and I awkwardly walk back to my front door together. His car is still running in the driveway and it's the only thing relieving my sinking, pounding heart, because it tells me that he's not planning on staying long. Still, everyone knows what happens when your date walks you to the front door, and I'm dreading it. This is our first date. I know Aiden's liked me for years and we make good enough friends, so I gave him a chance. I'm trying so hard to like him the way he likes me. I'm trying so hard to ignore that all I really want is…_

_"Here we are," he says before I can finish my thought. We stand, facing each other, lingering by the door._

_"Here we are," I echo, looking around before giving him a thin smile. He replies with a genuine grin and I feel so sorry for him. He moves closer, turning serious, and then rests a hand on my neck. The other hand is on my waist. I feel myself swallow hard and then force myself to lean in, my body rigid. He kisses me and it feels so, so wrong. He's too forceful, too aggressive, and the stubble on his chin hurts when it brushes against my skin. When we're done, he promises to take me out again, soon, and leaves. I don't explicitly agree, but I don't turn him down, either. _

_I take a moment, wiping off my mouth and sucking in a deep breath, and then push open my front door and head to my room. My parents are out tonight and if it weren't for the fact that I'd asked Spencer to come over and help me prepare for my date, I'd be alone to wallow in my own misery now. As it is, she's sitting on my bed when I open the door, watching TV, and she hastily grabs at the remote and turns it off when I come in, then makes some movement I can't see with her hands and face before she turns around and smiles at me. "Hey! So how'd it go?"_

_I don't respond at first, kicking my heels off and then moving into my bathroom to check my reflection. My makeup is still intact and I don't look nearly as dirty as I feel right now. I sigh. "Well… he kissed me."_

_Spencer takes a moment to reply. I hear my bed creak after a few seconds, and then she appears in the doorway of my bathroom, leaning against the frame. "And how was it?" she asks quietly._

_I close my eyes and grip the edge of the bathroom counter while Spencer watches my reflection in the mirror. "I want to like him," I tell her. I hear her step forward and then a moment later I feel her hand on my back. "Things would be so easy if I could just like him."_

_The hand on my back leaves and I straighten up when I see Spencer's put a little distance between us. I look at her, confused, until I notice a faint trail on her cheek. I step toward her and reach out with concern. "You've been crying." My thumb brushes across her cheek and she moves back slightly once again, shaking her head with embarrassment, though she's not out of my reach._

_"Um… sad movie. The Notebook was on," she tells me. Her face is turning red before my very eyes, and I trace the faint line on her cheek with my fingertip, following it with my eyes as I go. Finally, my gaze shifts up to her eyes and I feel myself being drawn toward her. I can tell our faces are getting closer but I'm not aware that either of us is moving. I want so badly to be brave. I want a moment where the only thing I can think about is Spencer. No Aiden, no Paula, nobody telling us that the way we feel is wrong._

_"Ash," she says in a whisper as the finger near her chin slides up to below her ear and I cup her cheek in my hand. "I-"_

_I think this is that moment._

_My lips brush hers just slightly in not quite a kiss, and whatever her next words were die in her throat, replaced by a small intake of air and a barely audible gasp. Her eyes are shut now and mine are too, and I briefly wonder if I look pained. I'm terrified right now and I know I'm not the only one. _

_I push past it and take the plunge, closing the miniscule gap between our lips and kissing her right here in my bathroom. In an instant, her hands are buried in my hair faster than I thought possible and she's pulling me so close I think I can feel every inch of her body on mine. I put my free hand on her hip and push her back slightly so that she's pressed up against my bathroom door, and she whimpers in response, kissing me with an intensity and passion I didn't know was possible. _

_And it feels so, so right._

My cell is cold. I don't know where I am, and I don't know how long I've been here, but I know that I'm alone, that I've been alone for a while now, and I'm freezing. My head is throbbing so hard that I'm almost wishing for death right now, and the only thing that's been keeping me from falling apart altogether while I've been here is the thought that maybe Spencer got out. Maybe she followed my instructions. Maybe she's even already safe at our destination, wherever it was.

That thought gets me through the pain and when it's finally faded, I slump onto my side on the ground and let out a shaky breath to match my shaky body. I think of Spencer and smile wryly. We really were a good match, weren't we? I didn't see it at first, when our relationship was contentious and laden with suspicion at best, but I can see it now. I miss her.

Every now and then someone brings me a plate of food and a glass of water, and my prediction that I'm due to be given food soon turns out to be right. I hear footsteps coming down the hallway toward my cell and a moment later a man I don't recognize appears, dressed in the same Patrol garb as all of the others have been. He opens the door to my cell to put the food on the floor. I'm too weak to attempt an escape. Then he leaves the cell and closes the door behind himself, turning away from me.

"Can I have a blanket or something?" I call after him with a glare, rubbing my arms for emphasis. He laughs as he walks away. "Thanks," I add sarcastically, and then grab at the plate of food. It's cold potatoes and even colder bread, as usual. Yum.

As I eat, I ponder why they're keeping me here. I always thought that when Patrol captured people, they just had them killed. The fact that the cells all around me are empty supports this theory. So why aren't I dead? Don't get me wrong; ninety-nine percent of the time I'm glad they didn't kill me, but that doesn't change the fact that I seem to once again be the exception to the rule.

Footsteps interrupt my thoughts, and my eyebrows furrow. They just fed me, so who could this be?

As the footsteps grow nearer, I hear the sound of slow clapping join them. My eyes narrow as the source of the noise arrives at my cell and Sloan stares down at me, his sarcastic clapping dying down and then eventually stopping. "It was only a matter of time," he says knowingly, eyeing me with a smugness I'd love to slap off of his face. "I'd only hoped I'd be the one to put you away, but I suppose as long as it's been done I can be satisfied."

"Why are you here?" I ask him in a low voice.

"To gloat, mostly," he replies. "Outside of your Mate's house wasn't the only place we had you on film, you know. There were cameras in my office, and we got quite an interesting surprise when we checked them after your capture. That was quite a stunt you pulled in my office; getting another student to distract me so you could steal from her file. Tell me, was that a favor to her or did you need them for something else?" He watches me, waiting for an answer, but I keep my mouth shut, glaring at him. He sighs. "Well, alright. I suppose it doesn't matter now, anyway. She's been taken care of."

His words turn my whole body icy and my glare falters for a moment. No, he has to be lying.

"Oh, it's true," he says, almost as if he can read my mind. "We found her. Your sacrifice was for nothing and your little friend is gone. Your mother is gone. Your Mate will be reassigned. We will treat you as though you are dead. Because you are." He steps closer to my cell and stares into my eyes. "Everyone you've ever cared about has left you, Ashley Davies. And you will stay here until I wish for it to be otherwise. Which, I can assure you, will never be the case. I control your fate now."

"You don't control anything," I snap at him. "You're just an officer. I bet you come running with a fresh roll of toilet paper the instant your commander needs his ass wiped."

He glowers at that, and a sneer stretches across his face. "You stupid, ignorant little girl," he growls at me, pressing himself as close to the cell as he can, his forehead pushed up against the bars as he looks down upon me. "I've been controlling everything about your life before you even knew I existed. You have no idea how much power I have or how important I am."

"Enlighten me, then," I retort hatefully. His sneer only grows and if possible, he presses further into the bars. His slimy lips part and he bares his yellowed teeth. And he quietly says four loaded words that send my blood to an instant boil.

Forgetting my weakness, I lunge at him, but he backs away, too quick for me, and I end up pressed against the bars and trying in vain to grab at him with my arms outstretched as he steps out of reach. I'm like a caged animal but I can't stop myself. I've never wanted to kill someone before but I want it more than I've ever wanted anything now. He laughs at me openly even as I struggle, and then finally says, "I'll enjoy nothing more than returning here to watch you rot, Ashley Davies." He leaves, and I watch him go with all the hate in my eyes that I can muster, still breathing heavily. I let out a frustrated scream once he's gone and grip the bars, shaking them wildly, but my cell remains locked. Exhausted and sobbing, I collapse back onto the cold, hard floor, and for the first time, I genuinely do wish for death.


	17. Chapter 16

**A/N: I didn't realize this somehow but there's actually only one chapter left after this one in "Part 1" of this story! I've started on Part 2 and have a few chapters done but not many, so I was planning on going on a short hiatus after Part 1 ends, as the story kind of shifts a little bit at that point and if I'm ever going to take a break then obviously between distinctive parts of the story would be a good time. I'm thinking I'll end up having a Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 in the end, but I'm going to keep them all under this story rather than make new ones and call them sequels and all that. I'll try not to take too long with the hiatus, though; hopefully it would be two weeks at the max. **

* * *

I start counting my meals. How many times they're feeding me a day, I'm not sure, but I never get past mildly hungry before I get a new meal, so I know it must be at least twice. So when I'm at fourteen meals since my encounter with Sloan, I calculate that it's been four to seven days, although I'm still not sure how much total time I've spent in here, considering my first few days blew by in a tired, dark, confusing blur.

Once I begin to get used to being stuck here, I start to consider my options. I'd like to escape in those few moments where the cell's unlocked and I'm given a chance, but I'm too weak to fight the grown men that give me my food. Even at full strength I'd have to get extremely lucky in order to free myself, and I'm never at full strength anymore. I'm given just enough nourishment to sate me. The only solution to that would be to save up food, and if I save it for later, it's at my own expense in the present, so the effect would be negated anyway. There's simply no clear-cut way for me to free myself.

I do start preparing to try, though. I don't know how long I'll be in here and I might as well act as though it'll be for a while rather than hoping for a lucky break. So after my sixteenth meal since Sloan's visit, I lie down on the ground with my feet against the wall and start doing sit-ups. I know how being sedentary day after day works; the first things to go are my muscles. I might need to run quickly later, so after sit-ups I jog lightly around my cell, and after that I do push-ups to make sure my arms don't weaken. It saps a little of my strength each time I do it, but it's worth it.

At some point, I hit meal thirty-four, which means it's been eleven to seventeen days since Sloan's visit. Tack on the time before Sloan and that's probably about two to three weeks total.

It's strange; solitude. I thought I had it before, back when I hardly talked to my mother and had limited conversations with Aiden, Chelsea, and Madison. But that seems like an entirely different life at this point. Like there was another Ashley living my life; an unenlightened one who had the heart to do what I ended up doing but hadn't yet realized her full potential. Who hadn't quite processed that she could be more than an annoyingly rebellious teenager. That girl thought she knew what it was like to be alone, but _this_, this is solitude. I feel so very alone all the time. Sloan was right about one thing: my mother is gone, and Aiden, although he was no doubt crushed to learn of what happened to me, will have been reassigned by now. His family's obligation to me is over. There's no one left in this world for me.

The only thing keeping my spirits up even mildly is the hope that Sloan lied to me about Spencer. I saw her run away. She was fast. And although the memory of my capture is blurry, I know I slowed Patrol down quite a bit. There's still blood under my fingernails to prove it. At the very least, Spencer made it to my house with time to spare. The only question is if she could follow my instructions quickly enough.

I dream about her on a nightly basis and that keep me sane, too. The memories fade just as quickly as they always have after I wake up, but I'm always left with something, and those somethings begin to build up after a while, filling in tiny holes and gaps in my brain and leaving me with a vague idea of what my old life was like. What Spencer and I were like. The only thing missing is the emotions, the cravings for her that I so desperately wish I could feel. Dreaming of my memories, I imagine, is like watching someone else being in love. I may have knowledge of the fact that to be in love is a good feeling, and I may yearn to feel that way, but in the end there's still a disconnect from those memories. I can tell myself that I loved Spencer, but I can't make myself love her again, as much as I wish I could. Rather than invoking love, my thoughts of Spencer as I sit in my cell only invoke hope in me that she's safe, so that I can say I accomplished at least one thing I set out to do.

Sometime between meals forty and forty-one, as I'm drifting off to sleep and anticipating yet another memory, footsteps echo from down the hallway. My eyes flicker until they're half open and I faintly acknowledge that it's too early for my next meal.

Sitting up and ignoring the daily ache the hard floor has caused in my lower back, I squint out into the dark hallway as a figure approaches. I'm wide awake and fully aware by the time a key is being slid into the lock of my cell. My jaw falls open in surprise when I see who's holding the key. _"Glen? _What're you-"

"Shh," he hisses, cutting me off. "The guard keeping watch is just upstairs, and he's asleep."

"But," I start, only to have him cut me off again with a shake of his head. He beckons to me, quietly sliding the cell door open, and I hesitate for a moment before following him out into the hallway. My brain takes a few seconds to adjust to the idea that I'm free. "How long was I in there?" I ask him immediately. "Why are you letting me out? Where are you taking me?"

"Shut _up_," he hisses seriously, glaring at me. "If you get us caught, we're dead. I'll explain in the car."

He leads me down the hallway and through a room with a front desk sitting in the center. A Patrol guard sits in the chair just behind it, snoring softly. Glen presses a finger to his lips and gestures for me to follow, and silently, we gingerly make our way outside. When we're safely to Glen's Patrol car, I look to the building and realize I was kept in an abandoned jail in a more deserted area of the city. That may explain why I was alone for so long.

"Get in the car," Glen demands, and I obey immediately, the risk he's taking finally hitting me if he really is being truthful about wanting to save me. I have so many questions for him but I wait until he's started the car before I look to him for answers.

"You just busted me out of Patrol prison," I point out, "with no explanation."

Glen's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly and his fingers whiten on the steering wheel. "You've been there for two and a half weeks now. I'm taking you back to your house."

I look to him with wide eyes. "Why would you save me like this? And why now?"

"I had to wait for things to calm down," Glen tells me. "For cameras to be removed and for Patrol to be convinced I hadn't helped Spencer escape. You took a lot of unnecessary risks, you know. Especially coming to our house again the other day. My superiors saw you on the camera, and I had to convince them that you'd forgotten something at our house. And then after you and Spencer escaped together, I had to convince them that I'd been fooled by the both of you. I did a lot of work trying to cover your asses, you know." I don't know what to say to that, but he moves on before I can speak, anyway. "Listen, once you meet up with Spencer-"

"She _is _alive," I acknowledge, relief visibly filling me as I let out a breath. "I knew it. Where is she?"

"She should be hiding out wherever you sent her to," he tells me. "My knowledge is limited. But from what I've been told she should have enough food to keep her safe until you show up."

"She's been waiting for me?" I question, eyebrows furrowed.

"Of course. She can't get to Forest without you," he replies.

I shoot him a confused look. "Excuse me; _where_?"

Now it's his turn to look confused, although his expression soon turns to one of concern. "Did you not get a letter?"

"_You _got a letter?" I question, and then take a moment to consider that. It makes a lot of sense. "So _that's _why you're different," I realize. "Your parents left you information."

"A lot of it," he confirms. "More than they left even you, apparently. I've been told all about why I joined Patrol. I was also told to keep Spencer safe at all costs." He hesitates, and then adds, "Even at the expense of Clay. I don't know why, but I do know that you were expected to show up eventually and take her away to Forest."

"What the hell is Forest?" I question. "I thought it was just a password."

"I don't know anything about it being a password," Glen tells me. "But I do know that it's where you're supposed to take Spencer."

"How do I get there?"

"I'm not sure," he says. "My letter said you'd know that."

"I don't know anything," I retort, exasperated. "I've just been trying to get my memories back and all of a sudden I've become fucking Dora the Explorer over here." I shake my head, aggravated. "How do you even know Spencer's safe?"

"Because I'd have heard if she'd been caught," he tells me simply. "And she can't leave without you."

"How do you know?"

"The letter said so," he explains, much to my own chagrin. "Which means that if she's safe but she's not gone, you'd have a better idea of where she could be than I do."

"They'd have known she went into my house," I insist. "The cameras…"

"At my house, Aiden's, and yours," Glen confirms. "They removed them just yesterday, so yes, they would have seen her enter your house. But from what I understand, your father had a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Patrol is convinced she ducked out a window at some point, but who's to say she ever left?"

We're back to a familiar part of the city now, and my mind races as I try to comprehend what I've missed and what's happening now. "They'll kill you for this," I finally tell him.

"I took out all the cameras at the jail and they have no proof," he replies. "I was careful. I'll be fine."

I'm silent for a moment, my thoughts shifting to the days I spent in that cell. "Sloan visited me while I was imprisoned," I tell Glen. He looks confused.

"The officer that heads the King High division?"

I think back to what he told me. I'll never forget the sneer on his face or the anger I felt. I still feel it, nearly to the point where I don't want to leave just yet. Not without getting my revenge first. But I know I have to be realistic. Sloan will have to be taken care of another day. "The man who killed my mother," I correct.

Glen's silent for a moment. "…But I thought-"

"He made it look like a suicide." My fists clench at the thought. "All because I refused to give him information I didn't even have."

Our silence lasts even longer now, until I finally hear Glen swallow. "I read in my letter that Christine was the only one of our parents who planned to stay behind to help protect us. She knew she was in danger but she stayed anyway. I know she may have never been the same after the wipe, but from what I understand, your mother was an extraordinary woman."

"I know," I reply simply. "And I know now isn't the time to deal with Sloan. But don't think I won't come back one day to take care of him. And to come get you and Clay and my friends."

Glen has a faint smile on his face the next time I look to him, but he doesn't speak until we reach my house. "Give my regards to Spencer," he tells me. "Go straight inside and don't give anyone time to spot you. They may even know you're gone by now and I'll be speeding home to make sure I beat anyone there who shows up to ask questions. You should hurry and get going. Leave Los Angeles as soon as you can."

"Thank you," I tell him, my voice full of sincerity. I owe Glen my life and I'm fully aware of it. "And I will."

I get out of the car and prepare to close the door behind me, but Glen calls out to me one last time. "And Ashley?"

I pause, watching him and waiting. He nods to me.

"Keep my little sister safe."

I nod back, setting my jaw determinedly. "I promise."

I shut the door and he speeds off, and I immediately turn and run to my house, pleased to find the front door already unlocked. Eagerly, I enter, stepping inside and then closing the door behind me. Any minute now, Patrol could realize I'm no longer in their clutches, and the instant they do, this will be the first place they send squad cars.

In other words: I better get moving.


	18. Chapter 17 - End of Part 1

There are objects strewn all over every room of my house. Nearly every piece of furniture has been overturned and frankly it looks like a tornado has gone through here. Patrol must have torn this place apart looking for Spencer.

My bedroom is equally messy, and when I step inside and look around, I'm pleased to find that my bed seems mostly untouched, save for a few random pillows thrown into the corners of my room. Despite feeling an overwhelming wave of nostalgia, I don't dawdle for long, realizing the urgency of my situation. I wriggle under the bed and move the floorboard aside, a sense of relief washing over me when the calculator has been left there. The other objects are gone, save for the documents. Spencer must've done everything I told her to, at least through this part. She even left the calculator on the off-chance I ever did find my way here.

Grinning, I pull it out and pick it up, noting that the screen has been cleared. That's fine; I've long-since committed the six digits to memory.

I let myself revel in this moment against my better judgment. I've been waiting so long to do this. Every dream I had, every journal entry I wrote, and every risky action I took has all been in preparation for this. It's time to do what my dad always intended me to do. It's time to catch up to Spencer.

My thumbs push in the six digits, one by one, until I press the last one with a pounding heart and a shaky thumb. At first, nothing happens. And then I hear a low rumble coming from somewhere over my head. "The attic," I whisper, my eyes widening in realization. "Oh, wow." The exit's been right under my nose all along. Or, rather, right _above _it.

I'm so eager to get up to the attic that I nearly forget to put the calculator back, and when I finally do manage to get the attic stairs down, I scamper up them and then force myself to pull them shut behind me before I explore the attic. The last thing I need is for things to fall apart right now. I need to cover my tracks before I move on.

Once the stairs are secure, I get to my feet and turn. Everything in here is covered in dust, but it doesn't take a close inspection to realize that the hole in the floor in the corner wasn't there before. It's just the perfect size for a person to fit in, and upon closer inspection, I see the beginnings of a ladder just a few inches into the hole, stretching down into darkness between what looks to be the wall I _thought _meant the end of the attic and the real wall. My heart still thumping frantically, I reach down and squeeze the first rung, then shake the ladder slightly. It doesn't budge. It's stable. I'm scared to descend into the hole, but there's nothing that could stop me at this point. I'd be an idiot to turn back and face certain death. Besides, I know I have to trust my dad.

I turn my back to the hole and then carefully move my foot backwards and then down, standing on the top rung. Then I crouch down and shakily grip the edges of the ladder with my hands and place my other foot one rung lower. Trying to ignore the way the darkness is swallowing me up inch by inch, I descend lower, until I'm fully inside the hole. The instant this happens, a wooden panel slides over and reseals it, sending me into absolute darkness.

I swear my heart stops, and I'm frozen with fear, immediately paranoid about everything from this being a Patrol trap to the idea that spiders could be crawling around in this hole.

Fighting back a whimper, I squeeze my eyes shut and begin to descend, steadying my breathing as I go and focusing on lowering one foot and then the other. I can't stop now. Not when I could be so close.

My foot nearly misses a rung and I grip the ladder tighter, my heart shooting up into my throat as a new concern enters my mind: height. If I fall, the consequences could be fatal. I white-knuckle the ladder the next time I lower a foot, and ignore the way the metal digs into my fingers. I'm terrified. If Spencer really did manage to do this in the middle of the night with Patrol right on her heels, she truly is ten times braver than I'll ever be.

Eventually, there are no longer any rungs left for me to step onto, and my foot hits concrete, sending a large echo back and forth up the tunnel I've just descended down. Realizing I'm at the bottom, I let my other foot join my first and then stand here for a moment, before gathering the courage to gingerly feel around myself. I'm still boxed in, but eventually my hand collides with something protruding from one of the walls, and upon closer inspection I realize it's a doorknob. Elated but anxious, I turn it and then push it open.

Light immediately floods the tunnel. The source is a small room inside, which seems to have concrete walls, but also contains visible electrical outlets and has a large light at the very center of the ceiling which illuminates the entire room all by itself, from the looks of it. On the far wall are two square panels that no doubt have something interesting hidden under each of them, and on the floor rest two simple backpacks. I can see a small, square package lying next to one that claims to contain an unfoldable tent inside, and I realize that these were my dad's doing, assuming this room was his. He left gear. And from the looks of the wrappers strewn everywhere, food. There's also another door in the corner which looks to lead to the bathroom. This is a full-on bunker. I bet I could stay here for months and not only be safe, but survive with everything I need. There's even an empty square package on the floor that contains an "instant cot".

Which brings me to the most amazing discovery of all: against the wall to my left, alive, unharmed, and fast asleep, rests Spencer.

An uninhibited grin spreads across my lips before I can quell it. I don't think I've ever been this relieved to see someone before. At least not since I've had my memory wiped. Even seeing Glen back at the jail left me more shocked than anything. Spencer's here, and that means I don't have to do this alone. I have someone who needs me alive, after all.

I cross to her and kneel down beside her, feeling guilty about waking her up, but knowing that it's necessary. We need to get moving quickly; Patrol will be searching my house a second time and I wouldn't like to take any chances.

"Spencer," I say, loud enough to wake her. She stirs, her eyes fluttering open to focus on me. She takes a moment, blinking at me, then reaches up and rubs her eyes. When she's done, she looks at me again. I wait patiently as the intelligence comes back into her expression, a slow smile spreading across my face. "Hey," I get out just before she leaps at me with an excited gasp, her arms wrapping around me so tightly I find it hard to breathe. Gingerly, I hug her back. My vision swims for a moment and then goes black.

_"I love you." There's a breathy voice right next to my ear and my chest feels so warm, like my heart has been surrounded and wrapped up by a soft, velvety blanket. It's one of the best feelings I think I've ever experienced._

_Spencer leans back from her spot on top of me, chewing on her lip nervously as she waits for my response. I sit up and pull her close and kiss her like I'll never get to do it again, like I won't be kissing her again, over and over, for the rest of my life._

_"I love you, too."_

"You're alive," she breathes out next to my ear as I try to absorb what's just happened, and then she leans away to look at me as though she's looking at a ghost. "How did- How could-?" she keeps trying to start, but she finally gives up and shakes her head at me, repeating, "You're alive…"

I shake my head almost unnoticeably, dismissing my temporary vacation from the present. "Um…" I'll have time to think about it later, when we aren't in such a hurry. "They forewent the death penalty and just sentenced me to life," I tell her matter-of-factly. "I think Patrol might be going soft. Especially your brother." I shake my head in mock disappointment. "Helping terrorists out of jail… not exactly Patrol protocol."

"Glen let you out?" she questions, seeming surprised by that. I realize Spencer must've really thought Glen was loyal to Patrol, in which case there's a lot more she doesn't know than I originally thought. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"He told me he covered his tracks," I inform her, getting to my feet. "I'll explain later; Patrol will be at my house soon. They'll be looking for me. We need to get moving." I shoot her a quizzical look. "Why haven't you left yet?"

Spencer shrugs her shoulders simply. "I couldn't." She gets to her feet, noting my confusion. "I got here okay the night that… that night," she tells me solemnly. "Your instructions worked. I took everything you told me to from under your bed, came down here… I barely got down into that hole before Patrol searched the attic for me, though. Luckily, I made it here, and found what you basically see now. There's a bathroom, and there were food in those packs. There are also clothes and camping supplies, from the looks of it, as well as these weird bracelets, but I'm not sure what they do. It turns out we don't even need the stuff I brought."

I'd gathered most of this through my observations of the room. "Okay, so why didn't you leave on your own? Why couldn't you?" I ask again. She crosses the room to the two panels in the wall, and they slide upwards of their own accord, revealing the small electronic contraptions underneath. I can see two screens with handprints on them. "However we get out of here, it must be through this." Spencer turns to me. "This one on the left accepts my hand just fine, but I could never get the one on the right to work. I'm assuming it only responds to your handprint." She turns away from the panels and they slide shut, then she goes to dig through the backpack she brought. "I've stayed here for almost three weeks now, and had prepared to stay for much longer. I thought you were never coming back." She straightens up and I see she has my journal in her hands. I grimace. Right… _that_. "I had a lot of time to think."

She crosses to me and pauses when we're face to face again. "I wondered for a while why whoever made this room –I'm assuming your father- would continue to go through all this trouble to make sure we left together. First the password is _my _birthdate, and now we physically can't leave without each other. It's almost like he was trying to force us together." She looks to me matter-of-factly, almost knowingly, and then hands over the journal. I accept it, swallowing hard. "I know you know why." Her silent command is for me to start talking. I take a moment, and then breathe in deeply.

"I think now isn't the time for this."

Spencer doesn't visibly react to my statement. She does, however, turn and reach for the backpack closest to us: one of the ones left by my dad. She also picks up the tent package and the cot package. I watch, entranced, as she presses a small button at the corner of the cot package, and the cot begins to fold up of its own accord. A moment later, it's small enough to fit in the tiny package, which Spencer puts in her backpack along with the tent package. She turns to look at me, clearly accustomed to this new form of technology by now. "We're going, then? I've already got everything packed from my old backpack that I'd like to take with me."

Recovering quickly, I nod and grab at the second backpack, lifting it onto my shoulders. Together, we cross the room, back to the panels, which slide open for us when we've settled in front of them, me on the right and Spencer on the left. Simultaneously, we raise our hands and press them against the handprints. Both screens go green, and a wall in the corner of the room falls away, slipping down into the ground and revealing a tunnel just wide and high enough to fit the average male adult. This is it.

"This is our way out," I voice, looking down the seemingly endless tunnel with awe. "This is how we get out without being seen."

"It must have taken ages to make this," Spencer says beside me, sounding equally dumbstruck.

I nod my agreement, and then turn to her, only to see her finally tear her eyes away from the tunnel long enough to produce an object from her backpack. It's the compass, and she hands it over to me with a smile. "Lead on, Captain Davies."

I glance down to the compass to see the arrow pointed directly into the tunnel that looms ahead. I feel the corners of my lips tug upwards as a small smile forms on my face. I think of everything I'm leaving behind. Chelsea and Clay, who have spent the last eight months in their own ignorant bubble, but got so, so lucky in that they found each other even under the most terrible of circumstances. Aiden, who I crushed when I left and who will be forced to heal one month at a time as he comes to terms with first my capture, and now my fugitive status. And Glen, who risked his life for me and saved my life multiple times now, who will be the only one to know where Spencer and I have gone. I think of all the people whose lives I harmed or even helped end, and I think of my mom, who perhaps gave up her chance at life the instant she accepted the task of protecting me. There's so much death and destruction and corruption and hate, and I can finally do my best to leave it all behind. It'll be hard, but I'm not alone. I have one gorgeous, brave, absolutely amazing blonde girl by my side, and she's willing to take on this dangerous journey with me. I'm not alone. _I'm not alone._

Maybe, for now, that thought is enough to keep me going.

"Gladly," I tell Spencer, and then lead us into the darkness.

**End of Part 1**

* * *

**A/N: So that's all for right now; I'm off to enjoy my short hiatus, which I honestly doubt will last longer than two weeks tbh. In fact I'll probably be back in a week with an A/N that says "lol jk" because I've become so addicted to writing this story. But since having a larger gap between this chapter and the next part of the story makes sense considering this is sort of the end of the first arc of the whole story, I'm gonna hold off on posting for a little bit. But like I said, no longer than two weeks for sure. Think around 7-14 days. **

**In the meantime, here are some unanswered questions to think about and things to look forward to in future parts. Everything below will be addressed at some point:**

**-Why exactly Ashley has her dreams (which is the biggest mystery of the whole story, of course)**

**-What's been causing the blackouts she's had while she's been awake, like the one in this chapter**

**-The fates of Madison, Arthur, Paula, Raife, Glen, and even Aiden**

**-The purpose of the strange bracelets Spencer mentioned**

**-Why Spencer's parents told Glen to protect Spencer even if it meant losing Clay**

**-Whether or not Ashley ever gets her revenge on Sloan**

**-What became of the letter Ashley gave to Spencer**

**-Where the tunnel leads and where exactly Spencer and Ashley are going**

**-Whether or not Patrol is coming after them, and if so, to what extent**

**-And at some point in the future we'll also meet: Sean, Boz, Jake, and Kyla!**

**Any speculation on you guys' part is gladly welcomed. I can only hope you all stick with me despite the wait and continue reading and reviewing. This wouldn't be nearly as fun without you!**


	19. Part 2 - Chapter 1

**A/N: Here I am! Just shy of two weeks. Thanks for sticking it out with me, guys. Here we go with Part 2!**

* * *

Spencer and I have been walking for several hours now. Exactly how many, I'm not sure, given that we have no way of being able to tell time, but if I had to guess, it'd fall somewhere between six and eight hours. We've long since given up on speaking other than when it's necessary, which isn't often. Our plan right now is simple: keep going.

"Where do you think this is even leading us to?" Spencer eventually mumbles from somewhere behind me, and I shrug noncommittally. I'm being very wary about what I share with her. She has a lot of questions and I'm not sure I'll know how to answer them all when the time comes, or what she'll do with the information once she has it. When she starts asking questions, I'm going to need time to think before I tell her what she wants to know.

I have questions of my own as well, but no one to answer them. Like about my blackouts. I've had three now: one in the hallway at school, one with Spencer in the quad, and one back at the bunker. Are they random, or is something causing them? If so, what? I can't see a common factor between the three times it's happened.

I sigh to myself, frustrated. I feel like I have all of Spencer's answers, so why can't she have some of my own? The last time I went to her hoping to find answers she cut me down and practically told me I was crazy, despite coming around eventually.

It must be another couple hours of walking down the tunnel before Spencer finally suggests, "Do you think we should take a break and sleep?"

"I want to get as far ahead as possible," I tell her, not stopping. "They could be on our trail."

"How?" she questions. "The tunnel only opened for us, and it resealed when we left. The only way they're following us is if they somehow found the calculator, knew the code, and then also knocked the solid-rock entrance to the tunnel down with force. What are the odds?" She catches me by the arm and spins me around, forcing me to face her. There's light illuminating her face. It's coming from the flashlight she found in her backpack. She's squeezing my arm but something's wrong. I feel dizzy, and very quickly, the light fades from my vision and I feel my mind detach from my body as I withdraw into myself.

_"Do you see that one?"_

_ Spencer and I are fourteen and her tiny arm is outstretched up toward the dark sky as we lay in her front yard together, side by side. I follow her finger to a bright star that reveals itself to be moving a moment later. I laugh. "Spence, that's a plane."_

_ She huffs, her arm falling to her side abruptly between us. "Damn. Thought I finally found one. This idea sucked."_

_ "You were the one that suggested we stargaze in L.A.," I remind her. "I told you it wouldn't work."_

_ "Whatever," she mumbles, turning her face to look at me as her bottom lip juts out into a pout. _

_ "Dork," I say, grinning back._

_ "Hey!" she retorts, offended. She rolls abruptly, toward me, and I let out a yell as she lands right on top of me, flattening me against the ground. _

_ "Get off, you loser!" I cry, slapping at her back with my hand as she laughs at me. Eventually, she shifts, pushing herself up with her palms pressed to the grass on either side of my shoulders while her knees dig into the ground at my hips. Her hair hangs down around her face as she stares down at me. We're not laughing anymore. Staring back, I feel a strange feeling begin to well up in my chest and I bite my lip, reaching up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. Spencer looks so serious now, and I know I do, too. I watch as her eyes finally leave mine and slide down to where I've just stopped biting my lip, and I feel…terrified. She gave me my first kiss a year ago to help me practice for Aiden, but this is different somehow. I can see it in her face: she wants to kiss me again._

_ "Girls!" Paula calls, peering out at us from where she's poked her head out from behind the front door, and Spencer's off of me so fast I don't even process it until Paula's speaking again. "Time for dinner! Is Ashley joining us?"_

_ "That's okay," I say hastily, getting to my feet and brushing grass off of myself. "I'm gonna go."_

_ Spencer looks to me with surprise while Paula waits for an answer, unable to hear us from the front door. "Ash-"_

_ "I have homework anyway. Stuff to do," I mumble, and then hurry away to go call my mom so that she can come pick me up. _

Spencer's staring down at me when I stir. I think I'm lying down.

I sit up slowly while she watches with concern, kneeling at my side. "What happened?" I mumble to her, rubbing at my mildly aching head. Damn; I didn't bring any medicine. These haven't hurt as badly as the dreams yet, but when I do have dreams, they're hell without pain relievers.

"You passed out," she tells me. "I didn't know what to do; you just dropped."

"I feel fine now," I assure her, beginning to get to my feet. "We need to keep going."

"No, Ashley, you need rest," she argues, putting a hand on my stomach to keep me on the ground.

_"Why would you tell him that?!" _

_ Spencer looks scared by my outburst. "I thought that was what you wanted. You said you were thinking about giving him a chance."_

_ "That doesn't mean I was ready to go out on a date with him this weekend, Spencer," I tell her angrily, running a hand through my hair and collapsing on my bed. _

_ "I'm sorry," she murmurs, joining me a moment later. "I just… I thought I was helping you. I know you want…" she trails off and she won't look at me. "I just wanted to help."_

_ "I don't know what I fucking want anymore," I groan out, knowing deep down that it's a lie. "But I wasn't ready for this. I'm not ready for anything." I look to Spencer, biting my lip. I'm almost hopeful. Maybe if she can take the first step, I can brave enough to do this, too. "Do you want me to go?"_

_ She opens her mouth like she knows her answer right away, but then she hesitates. "I want you to be happy," she finally answers._

_ "Do you want me to go on a date with Aiden?" I ask again, watching her._

_ She sighs. "I… if that makes you happy," she tells me._

_ We're both cowards._

"Fuck," I groan out, gripping my head when I regain full consciousness again. Two in a row is too much. I can feel Spencer's heavy breathing next to me, and when I finally look at her, she reaches out to me again.

"Are you okay?"

"Don't touch me," I growl out, lacking the energy to move away. She immediately stops, looking like she might cry. I know she must be freaking out on the inside right now, and I appreciate her doing her best to keep calm outwardly. "I'm not dying or anything, so don't worry. Just… don't touch me."

I let out a deep breath and rest my head against the wall of the tunnel as Spencer keeps watching me. I swallow hard and wait a few moments, my eyes closed as I force my body to relax. The pain fades and I finally open my eyes to see Spencer's keeping her distance, as I asked. She's still watching me warily, though. When I don't pass out again, I realize my hunch was right.

"I can't touch you," I finally tell her. "It happens when I touch you." It makes sense, now. Spencer bumped me in the hallway that day. And after that bump, my dreams went from the same one over and over again to the different memories I've experienced now. Physical contact with her kickstarted all of this, although I don't understand how or why.

"How can that be possible?" Spencer asks, clearly on the same page as me. "Why can't I touch you?"

"I don't know," I breathe out, resting my head on the wall again. "But it looks like you got your break, because I'm exhausted. So let's enjoy it while we can."

An hour later, we've both activated a couple of the cots and I'm sitting on mine with my back against the wall, a flashlight beside me and pointed upward to light up the area around me. My journal is in my lap and I rotate between writing and chewing at my pencil as I try to remember everything important from the past few days. I'm retaining more and more of the flashbacks each time I have one, but everything's still fuzzy.

Spencer's still sitting up too, nearby, and I can see her watching me write. She looks deep in thought. Finally, I finish and put the journal away, and she immediately shifts her gaze to mine. "Are you going to explain what I read in there, now?"

"Go to bed," I tell her. "You wanted the rest, didn't you?"

"Not as much as I want answers," she counters. "Answers I know you have."

I sigh quietly, shaking my head. I was hoping to wait as long as possible to have this conversation. "I don't know everything, you know."

"Well, you certainly know more than me. And I know you know more about what's been going on with my brother than I do."

"Your brother got a letter," I answer shortly. "Your parents must've found a way to hide it where he'd find it, like my dad did with me. So he knew to protect you and not to just be a mindless Patrol drone. That's all I know."

She's silent for a moment, until she asks me, "What about the warrants out for my parents? You found those in my file."

"What about them?" I question. "They looked interesting so I grabbed them. I read the same things you did."

"They must have escaped to somewhere," she points out. "Is that where we're going?"

I hesitate. Is this telling her too much? Then again, could any harm really come of letting her know where we're headed? It's too late for her to turn back now, anyway. "…I believe so, yes."

"How far is it?" she asks without hesitation.

"I have no idea," I tell her. "It could be at the end of this tunnel or this could just take us out of the city and then we're on our own from there, for all I know."

She seems satisfied with that answer, but understandably perturbed.

"And you don't know why you pass out when I touch you?" she reaffirms.

"I don't just pass out," I clarify. "I dream. Or remember stuff, or whatever."

She swallows hard. "You said you were looking for someone, back in the library. Someone you wrote about in your journal. A girl you think was a big part of your past life." I stare at her, not answering as neither of us break eye contact. She says, with finality, "It was me, then."

I chew on the inside of my cheek for a moment, and then nod. She'd know I was lying if I denied it.

"And you have memories of me. When you dream."

I nod again. I'll give her the information she wants at this point as long as it means keeping that one last secret. There's something unnerving about the idea of her knowing just how close we were. I'd like to keep that to myself for now.

"Did you know you were looking for me all along?" she questions. "When we met, did you know?"

I think back. "No. I didn't know until the night I met you in the library. I went home and had a dream."

"If I'm in a lot of them why did it take that long?"

"Because they fade quickly. I don't remember them." I tap the journal. "That's what this is for."

She hesitates, mostly likely over her next question. "So you have memories of us, together." Her wording hits a little too close to home, but I nod. "What were we like?" she asks, quietly.

Here it comes. "The best of friends," I lie, offering her a small smile. Her lips part slightly and she eyes me for a moment, like she's trying to see right through me, but then she nods and offers me a short, forced smile in response.

"Okay." She shifts, then, lying down on her cot and rolling onto her side. "I'm done for now," she tells me. "You should get some sleep."

"I'll think about it," I murmur, and then shut the flashlight off with a click, plunging us into darkness.


	20. Part 2 - Chapter 2

**A/N: I'm really really sorry guys! These past two weeks have quite possibly been the most hectic and stressful of my entire life. I couldn't find the time to even physically go and update this story, let alone write an update to post. I'm very sorry for the long wait; I promised you just one hiatus. Updates should hopefully be back to normal from here on out. **

* * *

Spencer and I pack up our things after a quick rest, and spend the better part of at least another six hours in mostly silence as we continue to follow the tunnel before Spencer eventually says, "I never thanked you."

I don't reply, my eyes focused on the flashlight in my hand. I don't know how long its batteries are meant to last and I'm considering shutting it off to conserve them. I have no idea how much longer we'll be in this tunnel for. It could be just a few more hours, or it could be weeks.

"You saved my life and you didn't even know me," Spencer continues behind me, her voice echoing off of the thick tunnel walls. "Or, I mean, you knew me, but you didn't know me now… you knew me before, but…" She gives up with a sigh. "This is so complicated. Thank you. I owe my freedom to you… and my life, as well."

"Thanks for coming along," I murmur simply. She's unaware of exactly how much she's done for me. I'd say we're about even, personally. I have Spencer to thank for my new memories; I know that, now. The only question is why I'm the only one who can remember things. Shouldn't Spencer's memories have been triggered through contact with me the same way contact with her triggered mine? What makes me so special?

"Did you have a Mate?" I ask her on impulse, realizing I'd never had that question answered. It's my turn to get some answers, now.

Spencer's tone indicates her surprise at my sudden question. "Yeah, I did. Of course I did. Why?"

"I just wondered who you'd left behind," I tell her. "Other than your brothers, of course."

She lets out a small, almost bitter laugh. "Oh. Well, I won't exactly miss Patrick."

"Didn't click?" I guess.

"Not exactly." We walk in silence for a moment before she adds, "You've seen him, you know. I sat with him at lunch…?"

An image of the sullen, angry-looking boy sitting across from Spencer at the lunch table a few yards in front of mine flashes across the back of my brain. "I remember."

"We grew to hate each other," she says, blatantly.

"Why?" I retort curiously. I couldn't imagine hating Aiden. Sure, I feel uncomfortable around him after what we've been through in the past couple months, but I could never despise him, I don't think. I just feel bad for him.

Spencer doesn't reply at first, and I glance back at her with a small smile.

"C'mon. Story time. In case you haven't noticed, it looks like we're gonna be walking for a while."

"It's not much of a story…" she tells me dubiously. "But… I guess Patrick was really nice at first. He seemed really interested in getting to know me, which I hadn't expected because we were going to be together regardless. But the more I found out about him, the more I just didn't like him. I don't know if it was a personality clash, or if he just liked me too much and I didn't feel the same way…" she trails off uncertainly, and pauses. "…I guess he just made me…"

"Uncomfortable," I finish for her, not turning around.

"Yeah," she says with realization, as though I've finally put a word to a feeling she's been trying to label for a while now. "Exactly."

I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying more. I understand exactly how she feels, to an eerie extent. Aiden and I got along but there was always an underlying discomfort to our relationship, and it came from the expectations that were put on the both of us. "Did you ever think," I begin to ask, wondering whether the similarities in our relationships with our Mates end here or not, "that maybe you could just learn to love him? Didn't you ever try?"

"Well, of course I tried to be nice-"

"No," I cut her off, turning around and facing her abruptly. She stops in her tracks, surprised, and we stare each other, at a standstill. "Did you try to accept the fact that he was who you were going to be with? Did you try to love him? Did you try to make the best of it?" I was never like Aiden's sister. Aiden and I were never going to be Maribel and Nathan. I got along with Aiden but I'd never completely resigned myself to the idea of being with him, and I never made a conscious effort to make us work as anything more than friends. Even when he began to fall in love with me, I was unaware of his feelings. He was a friend, and that was that.

"I guess not," Spencer tells me carefully, like she's wondering why I seem so determined to talk about this all of a sudden. I don't know what's come over me, either. I'm standing in front of a girl I hardly know but desperately want to know everything about, and I've found common ground with her. It's like I crave every little connection I can get. Maybe this conversation will be another puzzle piece in discovering who Spencer is, and maybe through that, I can figure out who we were, and who I was. In a roundabout way it's like the more I learn about her, the more I learn about myself.

"Why not?" I question simply. "If you knew he was all you'd ever have, why not make it work?"

She sighs, clearly confused by the direction of this conversation now. "I don't know; does it matter?"

"It does," I confirm. "You had hope that something better would come along."

Her expression changes, her eyebrows quirking upward and then furrowing as she eyes me critically.

"Otherwise," I continue. "You'd have settled. But you're so hopeful, you know? And with no reason to be. I had clues; they gave me my hope. You started off with nothing but you still hoped things could get better. And I think… you know, that that's really special." I offer her a small smile, and after a moment, she smiles back, albeit still looking a little confused.

I turn away and start walking again, and she follows. "…Thanks?" I finally hear her say.

"Yeah," I reply.

* * *

Two hours after my last real conversation with Spencer, I take a misstep and stumble, and she hastily reaches out to grab my arm. When my vision clears and I'm back in the present, I'm sitting against one of the walls of the tunnel, sporting a small headache, and Spencer's looking at me pointedly from where she's crouched down beside me. "You know…" she says, "I'm beginning to think this is going to be a problem."

"You're not alone," I mumble as I rub at my head.

"I mean, I'm not naïve. I know this trip is about a one-thousand on the dangerous scale," Spencer points out. "So there might be times where we have to hide somewhere together where there isn't a lot of room, or help each other climb up something tall, or what if you see someone coming that I don't and have to pull me out of sight at some point? You going all fainty isn't exactly ideal in any of those situations."

"Preaching to the choir, Spencer," I retort, watching her back away as I slowly get to my feet. "I'd stop it if I could."

She sighs, and about five seconds afterward, I realize that my statement was a lie. Spencer-induced dreams are less painful than my nighttime dreams, and I can induce them whenever I want as long as she's around. Sure, they may happen accidentally every now and then as well, but it's a small price to pay for all the bits of memory I could have in return. At least while we're in this tunnel and know we're safe, I want to be able to revisit my past when I touch her. I'd probably change my mind if any of the situations Spencer listed really did arise, though.

"Maybe you could practice," Spencer suggests as we resume winding our way through the tunnel. "Tonight."

"Practice what?"

"I'm saying I could touch you, and you could try to keep from passing out."

"That's not the way it works," I tell her, trying to think of a way to word what I want to say. "I know it looks like I'm passing out, but it's not like I just go unconscious. I guess it's like dreaming, but with more awareness. Like I can see what's in front of me change. Like whatever scene I'm about to be inserted into forces its way into my vision and pushes out the present. I don't know why my motor functions stop working because I feel just fine until I get back here."

"You make it sound like you go somewhere else," she replies curiously. "You know you're not physically leaving, don't you? I watch you the whole time. You look like you're asleep."

"I don't mean I'm time-traveling," I tell her with an incredulous look. "I'm just saying that I'm not sure it's something I can stop. The second you touch me that new scene takes over and I don't have any idea how I'd prevent that."

"With practice," Spencer suggests again, with finality. "The least we can do is try."

"Since when are you skilled in any sort of mental training exercises?" I laugh out, turning slightly to look at her. "We'd be completely winging it."

"Since I decided it's about time I was the one helping you out with something," she replies.

* * *

"So on the slight off-chance this doesn't work-"

I snort. "_Slight _off-chance, okay."

Spencer gives me a look from where she's sitting on the cot next to me, cross-legged. I'm facing her in the same position, but with my back resting against the wall. "If it doesn't work," she resumes, and then hesitates. "Would you…?" I look at her questioningly and she finally gets it out, "…would you tell me what you see?"

"Why?"

I realize my question was dumb as soon as the word is out of my mouth, but Spencer gives me the obvious answer anyway. "You're not the only one who wants to know about how things used to be."

I watch her await my answer anxiously, and feel the corners of my mouth tugging upward. "Spencer," I tell her, "I'm really happy I'm here with you."

She looks caught off-guard, but even in the darkness I can see her smile. "Thanks."

"I remember thinking you were annoying and… well, kinda hopeless," I tell her. "I remember thinking I'd never get you to come here with me. And… I guess it feels really _really _good to finally be with someone who wants the same answers I do." I hold out my hand and let out a deep breath. "With that said… let's get this over with."

"Okay," she says, very quietly, and I see the outline of her arm as she reaches out. A moment later, her warm hand slides into mine and I feel her squeeze it as my vision begins to cloud. I make a split-second decision and put up no resistance as a new scene takes over. The temptation's too great; I want another memory. I can make a real attempt some other time.

_"What the hell am I doing?" Spencer paces back and forth frantically in her room as I watch her from where I'm perched on her bed. "Oh my God, I'm really gonna do this." She pauses and looks to me with wide eyes. "Ash, I don't think I can do this."_

_That's my cue to get off of the bed and go to her. I'm terrified too, but I know if I show it Spencer will chicken out. And as much as we'll both hate it, this really is something we should probably do. "Spence, your dad already knows, and so do your brothers and my dad. They were all fine. Sure, my mom wasn't exactly gung-ho in the beginning, but she tolerates it and she agreed to keep it from your mom until we were ready. Well… I'm ready, and I think things are going to be fine." That last sentence was a complete lie on both counts, but I do my best to sell it, because I know deep down that Spencer really is ready. "You can do this," I finish, holding her tight by both of her shoulders. She looks at me with wide eyes for a moment, then pulls away and starts to breathe hard again._

_"Oh my god, I can't do this."_

_"Spencer, stop it," I tell her, hurrying after her as she resumes pacing. "Literally everyone knows except your mom. Don't you think she deserves to be filled in?"_

_"Not if I get kicked out of the house afterward!"_

_"Okay, that's being a tiny bit melodramatic," I point out. "Nobody else in your family would let that happen."_

_"You don't know my mom," she replies with a shake of her head._

_I stare at her. "Spencer, I've known your mom for six years now. Come out to her."_

_ "How?" she asks incredulously, facing away from her bedroom door as we stand face-to-face again. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to say! Do I go for the conventional 'Mom, I'm gay' and leave it there? Do you think she'd just assume I'm dating you if I said that? Do I need to tell her I'm dating you, too?" I look past where Spencer's having her freakout to see the door to her bedroom begin to swing open. _

_ "Spencer," I say hastily, but I'm not sure she's paying attention to me at all at this point._

_ "I mean I can't just lay it all out on the line like that, you know? I can't just be like, 'Mom, I'm attracted to girls and Ash and I are having sex!'"_

_ "Excuse me?!"_

_ I barely get a glimpse of Spencer's horror-stricken face as she spins around to face a seething Paula standing in her bedroom doorway. _

Spencer's no longer touching me when I come to, and I blink a few times as she comes into focus and my memory slowly begins to fade away. Damn; I wanted to know what happened next in that one.

"I'm guessing that was a massive failure," Spence points out. "You were gone for a few minutes there."

"Yeah," I mumble. "Sorry."

"Do you at least remember what happened?"

A brief image of Paula in the doorway, angry, flashes across my vision and I shrug. "I don't know… some of it? Not enough to give you a story."

She watches me for a moment, her disappointment evident, but a moment later, she reaches for my hand again. I don't have time to protest before she says, "Fine. Let's try again, then."


	21. Part 2 - Chapter 3

As Spencer's hand covers mine, I actually make a real effort to keep her face in my vision this time. I can feel her hand in mine, warm and reassuring, and I can see her watching me with concern as I'm sure my face screws up in concentration. I'm here. I'm here with her, and I just need to stay here with her, as tempting as it is to find out more about my past. If I can master controlling this, I can choose when to look back into my past and when to stay in the present. But damn, is it hard when I can feel the new memory taking me over and sucking me in. For a moment, I'm caught between the present and the past, Spencer's face swimming in front of me while my old memory plays like a highlight reel in the back of my head. It affects my entire body. I get a brief feeling in my knees, like they're pressed into the soft mattress of a bed, and I hear heavy panting, and I close my eyes as warm air slides past my chin as though someone's exhaling close to my face. I read these signs and know what this dream could be, and the temptation is once again way too great. Spencer's exercise will have to wait again; I want this memory far too much to try to fend it off any longer.

_Spencer's breathing hard and arching slightly beneath me and I'm hanging onto every whimper she makes as I focus on where my hand is pressed intimately between her thighs. The free arm holding me up is beginning to hurt and I shift to relieve the pain, bringing my face down closer to Spencer's and placing open-mouthed kisses down her neck. From here, I can hear her heavy breathing even more clearly, and I can hear every time it catches just slightly. I could listen to those sounds forever. I love her so much._

_ She surprises me by digging her hands into my hips and rolling us over, forcing my hand out from between her legs. Immediately, her own hands get to work on the button and zipper of my pants, the only article of clothing left between the two of us save for my underwear. "It was your turn," I breathe out in protest as she finishes pulling my pants off, but I quickly stop complaining the minute she touches me. My back arches and I feel a quiet moan bubble up in my throat. _

_ "You were getting tired," she retorts with a grin, her face above mine as her hair tickles my chest and shoulders._

_ "Was n-OT," I protest, my tone climbing higher when Spencer decides it's a good time to curl her fingers. "God. That's so not fair."_

_ "I think you'll get over it," she teases, and then covers my mouth with her own._

The memory fades out and when I open my eyes, I register the quickened pounding of my heart and the dull throbbing in my head. Then I register Spencer right in front of me, and immediately swallow hard. With my memory still fresh and her face only a couple feet from mine, a feeling I've yet to have since my memory wipe fills me: lust. I'm suddenly overly aware of her lips, and I only barely manage to reign in my hormones and remember where I am. When I do snap back to reality, the memory begins to fade, as always, and I feel the lust ebb away. It's not the same this time, though. I've no longer only watched myself feel this way for another person; I've felt a part of it myself. For a moment, I wanted her. And now I remember how it _felt_ to want someone. I feel the effects of that even after the memory has nearly faded completely. I don't just find Spencer attractive anymore. I'm attracted to her now.

"Fuck," I murmur, leaning back against the wall and wincing when my head throbs harder the instant I make contact with it. "Ow."

"Are you okay? Did it work?" Spencer asks me earnestly as I rub my head and attempt to recover. "Did you fight it at all?"

"It didn't work," I murmur, unable to look at her without feeling embarrassed now. "But I did fight it for a few seconds. At least now we know it's possible."

"That's amazing," she breathes out, and when I finally look at her, she's grinning proudly. "I knew it could work. I knew you could do it."

"Sure," I reply, slowly getting to my feet and moving to where my backpack's resting against the tunnel wall. I want to get the second cot package out. "Let's get some rest now. I can't do another."

"And we can try again tomorrow night?" Spencer suggests.

"Yeah," I agree without turning around, and thankfully, she drops the conversation and lets me go to sleep.

* * *

I'm woken up to a flashlight in my face and a faint, low rumbling sound in my ears. Spencer's behind the flashlight and she walks over to me as I sit up and squint at her.

"Do you hear that?" she whispers, pointing her flashlight upwards. I follow the light and listen harder.

"Yeah. Something's up there."

A loud horn-like sound pierces through the solid rock between our tunnel and the surface, and Spencer and I both start, recognizing the noise immediately.

"It's a train," she says excitedly while I immediately stumble over to my backpack and fumble for the compass. Once I have it, I straighten up and turn, eyeing the arrow on it as the train's horn blares and it passes somewhere over us. I face the direction the arrow's pointing and listen. A grin spreads across my face as the train finally fades away and the rumbling leaves with it.

"And it's heading right in the direction we're supposed to go. I bet if we get lucky, we can use a train to travel."

Spencer and I hurriedly snatch up our things and pack everything up, then resume our trek through the tunnel again, eating breakfast in the form of granola bars as we go.

"We can't be more than a few miles away, then, can we?" I suggest. "I bet we'll reach the end of this by tonight."

"Good," Spencer replies. "I can't wait to see some sunlight."

What we don't talk about is that by leaving the tunnel, we leave safety. We have no way of knowing what's next for us, or whether or not Patrol is on our tails. Hopefully Glen somehow led them astray, but there's no telling whether _he's _even safe or not at this point.

As we walk, I find myself thinking of my mother again. I've been hyped up on adrenaline and so concerned with surviving that I'd pushed what happened to her out of my mind for the past few days. Even thinking of Sloan now makes my fists clench so hard my fingernails nearly draw blood from my palms. I'll kill him for what he did to her. I may not be able to do anything about the Leaders or Patrol in general, but with enough determination, I can find a way to take out one guy, even if he's bigger and stronger than me. That I'm sure of.

Spencer pulls me from my thoughts soon enough. "Ashley, do you think we should take a break and practice again?"

"We're almost there," I point out. "Why stop now?"

"Because once we get out we can't afford to waste time," she replies. There it is: the first mention of how much danger we'll be putting ourselves in by leaving the tunnel. "You'll have to get some control over this before we hit the end of this thing. Which is probably soon. You got close last time but then it felt like you stopped fighting."

"Here's the thing," I begin, turning to look at her. "Imagine if the one thing you wanted –more than anything in the world- was to know about your past life… You know, scratch that 'if', actually, because I know that's what you want, too. If you could do what I could, and you could feel that memory, that information, right there waiting to be taken, even if it would only be temporary… would you push it away?"

She closes her eyes for a moment, and then opens them with a sigh. "I get it. I do. But I would sacrifice it if it meant my own safety. And at some point it _could _mean our safety. If you don't practice then you won't be able to let it go when we need you to."

I don't have a response to that for a moment. "Well… it's too draining, anyway. I can't keep doing it while we're trying to travel, you know. I can hardly carry this backpack anymore."

"If it's tiring, let me carry the extra weight," she suggests. "Why don't we practice one more time when we reach the end of the tunnel, and then I'll take some heavy stuff out of your bag and put it into mine before we head up? That's fair."

She's right; I can't really argue with that. "Fine." I take a deep breath. "So I guess all that's left to do is to keep going."


	22. Part 2 - Chapter 4

**A/N: As always, thanks for reading and reviewing! It continues to amaze me that there are actually people out there who are interested in something I've written and are keeping up with it!**

**Also, to the reviewer that asked about getting some insight into what happened to Glen and what Sloan's reaction was to Ashley having escaped, I can't reveal anything about either of those at the moment; it'd be too spoilery ;)**

* * *

We walk until we eventually see a shadow in the distance, although it's barely differentiable from the thick darkness up ahead. "What's that?" I ask, pointing, and Spencer shines her flashlight in the appropriate direction. What we see brings a smile to my face, and I can hear Spencer's matching one in her voice as she replies.

"Our way out."

A giant ladder -much like the one both Spencer and I descended to get into the bunker under my house- is embedded into the stone wall ahead of us, where the tunnel has come to an abrupt end. We stop walking when we reach the ladder, and I tilt my head up, looking to where the ladder disappears up into the darkness. The descent was scary enough, but climbing back up will be a new level of terrifying. Suddenly I'm up for anything that will put this off long enough for me to gather my courage first.

"So, two things," I start, turning to look over at Spencer, who looks a little nervous as well. "Practice, and then I think we should figure out exactly what we have in our packs besides the camping gear before we go up and possibly need to use more of this stuff."

"I already did that while I was alone," Spencer admits. "It's all gear, except for the weird bracelet I told you about."

"Well, the bracelet can't have no purpose, right?" I point out. "So practice, then bracelets, then we… climb, I guess."

Spencer nods, placing her bag on the ground and then watching me remove mine. "You really have to try your best this time."

"It's hard," I argue. "I know it has to work but… a big part of me doesn't want it to."

Spencer sighs. "Our problem is that we need to make sure that when there's a bigger initiative to stay in the present, you actually _can_, but at the same time… that initiative is going to be that we're in danger, and you can't test real danger, can you?"

"Could we?" I ponder, furrowing my eyebrows. "Could we put me in danger now and see if I can save myself?"

"But if we're doing it to you on purpose, it's fake danger, which is inherently not dangerous," Spencer replies. "You'd know you weren't in real danger."

"So let's put me in real danger, then. Say we both climb a decent amount up the ladder, then you touch me. If I pass out, I let go and fall."

"That basically defeats the purpose of practicing," Spencer tells me, looking incredulous. "If we're putting you in a situation where you'll get hurt if you don't succeed, you're hardly better off than if we just waited around for a non-manufactured dangerous situation, aren't we?"

"Well, in my scenario, I break a bone or something. Who knows what the consequences would be in another scenario."

"Or you could fall and hit your head," Spencer points out. "The ladder's a terrible idea."

"Well, unless you know how to create some sort initiative for me to fight off old memories -the most priceless things on the planet nowadays, in case you haven't noticed- it's the best idea we have."

Spencer doesn't reply for another moment, and I watch her as she walks to the wall and sits down, clearly deep in thought. Another idea strikes me.

"Choke me?"

She pulls a face, then shakes her head. "Not real danger; I wouldn't actually kill you and you know that."

"Right," I sigh out, moving to sit down a few feet away. "I'm sure there's a way, though. All we need to do is figure out how to make me want to stay in the present more than want to revisit my past. Simple enough."

We're silent for a moment. And then beside me, Spencer turns to stare at me. I glance over at her with confusion when she doesn't look away after a moment. "What?" I ask. She lets out a heavy, almost frustrated breath, and then moves so that we're facing each other. I rest my back against the wall, eyeing her determined look with some trepidation. "What, do you have an idea?"

"Yeah," she says shortly. I wait for a moment for her to continue. She doesn't.

"Okay. So what is it?"

"Danger isn't the only way to motivate you," she tells me, rather than outlining her plan.

"Well I have to admit, it's slightly relieving that you're not about to try and kill me."

"We just have to come up with anything that'll keep you here, right? A lot of emotions could keep you here."

"Okay," I say, still not following. But if I'm not mistaken, Spencer colors a little.

"Just so you know… I'm doing this to- …I mean, I just want this to work, and curiosity on your part should be enough to… get the job done. But that's what I'm doing. That's all."

"Now you're just weirding me out. Can't you just tell me the plan?" I question, even more confused now.

Spencer's definitely blushing now. "Just remember that it's for the sake of our safety, okay? So that we don't have to hurt you now and we don't end up hurt later on."

"How can I do that when I don't even know what the hell you're talking about?" I ask incredulously. Rather than answer, she simply reaches out and takes my hand again.

I feel my vision immediately begin to blur as a new picture mixes with Spencer's face. Spencer's face that's getting bigger. Wait, not bigger… _closer_. Spencer's face is getting closer to mine. What the hell is she doing?

My old memory is instantaneously an afterthought as I focus on my attention on the blur that's Spencer's face, watching as it slowly comes into focus just before I feel her hand leave mine and then slide up my arm at what feels like a snail's pace. Her face is still close but not nearly as close as I know I must have been to it in my memories, and by the time her hand slides across my shoulder and then up to cup my cheek, my memory's long gone; just a buzz in the back of my brain that's so insignificant I hardly realize it's there. Spencer's face is completely clear now in my vision. Her experiment has worked. I'm just not sure my mouth's working enough to tell her that right now.

She moves in closer and I feel my heart rate steadily begin to climb as the distance between our faces decreases. Her eyes slide shut and I think I might faint for an entirely different reason now. She's really going for this.

Our noses brush and I feel her breath, warm and slightly unsteady on my face, as her thumb brushes back and forth across my cheek. She tilts her head and I know our lips must be so close. My own lips part and I lick them quickly, letting out a slow breath and then holding back a groan when she doesn't come any closer. Frustrated, I tilt my head up just slightly, bringing my lips closer to where I imagine hers must be.

She breaks all contact between us in an instant, and my eyes snap open to see her leaning back with a flushed face as she refuses to make immediate eye contact with me. Instead, she clears her throat while I watch her, my entire face the perfect picture of stunned. We're both silent for a moment, until I break the quiet with an awkward clearing of my throat. "Well… that worked." She stands up wordlessly and I mimic the motion. "Nice idea," I say to try and break the tension. It doesn't work. "I thought for a moment there…"

"Curiosity," she interrupts me, still not looking my way as she goes to where our packs are resting on the ground. "Like I said. We just had to make you more curious about what was happening in the present then about what was happening in your head. Since curiosity _is _what primarily motivates you to revisit these memories in the first place. It's only logical."

"Right. Makes sense," I breathe out, hastily trying to shake the remaining fog from my brain as I move to my own pack. Spencer's already withdrawn her bracelet and is reexamining it.

"I don't see any buttons on these things," she mumbles. "If they do something special there must be a way to activate them."

"Um. Have you tried putting it on?" I suggest, still digging around in my pack to try and find my own.

"Oh," Spencer says simply, sounding embarrassed. A moment later, as I straighten up with my own bracelet in my hand, I hear her add, "I don't think that does anything either."

"Well," I look up and turn towards her, "there has to be…" I trail off. I'm staring at a complete stranger: a woman in her early twenties with green eyes and curly blonde hair.

"What?" she says. My eyebrows shoot up.

"_Spencer_?"

"Um… yeah. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Holy shit." A slow grin spreads across my face. "You're not you! Who does mine give me?" I slip it on hastily and new Spencer immediately gets wide-eyed. I don't feel any different.

"Oh my God," she utters from beside me. "You're a guy!"

My bracelet's off so fast I nearly send it flying through the air in an effort to shake it off. Spencer slides her off a moment later and I try to force mine into her hands. "Let's trade."

"No way!" she argues, stepping away from me and using her flashlight to examine the bracelet more closely. "I bet it creates holograms, like the ones Patrol used in the war. We'll look different but if anyone tries to touch us, they'll feel our real bodies, so we should try to keep our distance from people while we're using them." She glances up to me briefly with surprise. "Wow, I didn't think these were still around. Patrol scrapped them after they realized how dangerous they'd be in the wrong hands."

"Looks like our parents managed to salvage a couple," I point out the obvious.

"And look, there's a little meter here. It's battery-powered. So we should use them sparingly."

"Gladly," I retort, tucking it back into my backpack. "At least now if we need to we don't have to be ourselves. Who knows if Patrol's gone public with our disappearance? But they didn't when my friend Madison ran away, so hopefully they haven't with us."

Spencer nods her agreement, then bends down to where my pack is unzipped and begins to pull out several of the items inside. I'm suddenly aware that I'm mildly tired; my scuffle with my memories still took some energy out of me, as short as it was. After Spencer has put several of the items from my pack into hers, she rezips them both, and then lifts hers onto her shoulders.

"Up for this climb now?" she questions, looking over at me as I stare at the ladder.

"Not really. But it has to be done," I admit. "So we might as well get it done now."

"I'll go first," Spencer offers, and just like that, she's gripping the small handholds along the wall and then climbing the rungs of the ladder one by one. I shoulder my pack and gulp as I watch her, then force myself to follow, my mind still buzzing from our almost-kiss.


	23. Part 2 - Chapter 5

**A/N: Guys, I know it's been such a long time! I've just had zero time to write between school and work. I'm working on adjusting to my new schedule and now that things have calmed down a bit I can hopefully get back into the swing of things. **

* * *

"Hurry!"

I can't keep the urgency out of my voice as Spencer struggles with the hatch at the top of the ladder.

"I'm trying!" she growls out. I can hear her moving and can vaguely see the shadow of her arm in the darkness. Finally, there's a click, and then she pushes upwards with a grunt, sending the hatch over onto its side at the surface with a soft thud. Light invades the tunnel and I nearly lose my grip on the ladder.

"Shit!"

Spencer glances downward, an arm over her eyes. "It's gonna take a few minutes for our eyes to adjust."

"Well hurry up and climb out; I can't hang on to this thing and shield my eyes at the same time," I insist, still stubbornly gripping the ladder with both hands.

"Okay." I hear Spencer let out a slow breath. "Here I go. Let's hope nothing's out there waiting for us. Especially since we can't even see."

She climbs up the remaining rungs and then she's out through the hatch and gone. I wait for a moment as I'm greeted with absolute silence. Hesitantly, I climb up a couple more rungs. "Spencer?"

"Wow," I hear her breathe out, distantly. Curious, I ascend up the rest of the ladder, and then gingerly climb up out of the tunnel. Eyes slamming shut, I collapse on the ground in a heap. Spencer's eyes have evidently adjusted more easily than mine, as a moment later I hear a thud that can only be Spencer resealing the hatch. "Ashley, open your eyes," she tells me. "Just do it slowly."

Nodding, I squint my eyes, and then slowly open them further, pausing when it hurts. I blink away the last of the pain when I'm finally done, and then look around us with surprise. "Whoa." We're in a clearing in what might as well be the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees, and the hatch Spencer just closed is covered in grass and blends perfectly with the rest of the ground. "Forest is right."

"What does that mean?"

"The name of the place we're going. At least according to your brother. It was Forest."

"So we're here?" Spencer asks incredulously. "Are you sure?"

I reach into my pocket and retrieve my compass, moving around a little to test it. "I don't know. The arrow's still pointing in a definitive direction. I think if we're there it would just move around a bunch in like a circle, you know?"

"I guess all we can do is follow it and hope we're close," Spencer admits. I nod my agreement.

"And keep a lookout for anyone else. We can't be sure Patrol isn't on our heels now. No more breaks every time we get tired; we have to keep moving."

With that said, we start off, heading out of the clearing and into the woods with myself keeping an eye on the compass and Spencer keeping an eye on the woods. Leaves crunch under our feet with every step and I think it only increases our paranoia as the time goes by.

It must have been early afternoon when we exited the tunnel, because we don't walk for more than a few hours before the sun begins to set. "I don't think we got lucky with the tunnel exit," Spencer finally admits when it's just beginning to get dark out. "I think it was meant to get us safely out of L.A., and that's it. Now we're on our own."

"But then why call the place Forest?" I question. "Talk about a misnomer."

"Maybe we're in the wrong forest."

Sighing at her response, I peer down at the compass again. Sure enough, the arrow is still pointing us straight ahead, rather than back in the direction we came. We're meant to keep going.

"How long until we reach civilization, do you think?" I ask. Spencer shrugs her shoulders, uncertain.

"I don't know. I'm not sure that would be a good thing, either."

"Good point."

After two more hours of exploration and still no sign of leaving the cover of the trees, Spencer and I finally discover another clearing, and with some hesitation, we set up camp. "We should be safe here," Spencer insists once we're inside a tent with our cots under us and our packs beside us. "We haven't seen anyone all afternoon, so I doubt anyone will show up now."

"Let's keep our bracelets close, just in case," I suggest. "If we hear anything, we throw them on and we're just a couple out for a camping trip or something. It'll sound sketchy but it's better than being possibly-known fugitives. We could be all over the news for all we know, and I bet if it were up to Sloan, we would be. He'd do anything to make sure I'm caught."

"He really doesn't like you," Spencer observes. "I remember he used to drag you to his office all the time."

"I seem to recall you coming with me once," I point out, forcing a smile. I want to direct this conversation away from Sloan and I's relationship as quickly as possible. I shared what really caused my mother's death in the heat of the moment with Glen, but I don't think I'm ready to tell Spencer. Especially since Glen may be able to help me to find and kill Sloan one day, while Spencer most likely would just discourage me from doing something so rash.

"Right, that's how we met," she recalls as well, a faint smile forming on her lips. "God, I thought you were crazy."

"I'm sure you weren't the only one," I tell her, thinking of Chelsea. "I hope Chelsea's okay. And Aiden."

"Glen, Clay," Spencer adds quietly. "We left them all behind."

"We'll go back."

"What if we can't?"

"We will. I will."

Spencer rolls her eyes. "Don't be silly; I wouldn't let you go alone."

"Really? You haven't known me long," I point out.

"I've known you for years," she replies simply. "I just can't remember it."

I give her a small smile and then move to lie down, staring up at the roof of the tent. "Spencer," I eventually say into the darkness. I hear her shift beside me as she lies down as well.

"Yes?"

"You know sometimes I have dreams, or memories or whatever, when I sleep. It hasn't happened since we entered the tunnel, which means I'm probably due to have one soon. When I wake up I have headaches."

"Okay." She sounds confused.

"They hurt really badly, but eventually it goes away. The pain's been getting worse lately. I used to have medication for it but I forgot to bring it. Just… don't freak out if it ever happens. The pain always goes away."

"We'll find you some medicine somewhere," she decides. I hear her yawn. "When we find a small town, or when we get to wherever it is we're going. This Forest place."

"Yeah," I agree. "Okay."

With that said, I close my eyes and listen to the sounds of trees and bugs just outside the safety of our tent, until I eventually fall asleep next to Spencer.

When I wake up in the morning, it's with a scream.

I'm alone in the tent, but not for long, as within seconds Spencer comes rushing back in to find me curled up in a ball with my hands clamped down over my head and tears streaming down my cheeks. I can hardly hear what she's saying over the sound of my own sobbing. I'm in so much pain I don't think I can see. "Don't touch me, don't touch me," I manage to get out, knowing Spencer must be freaking out right now. I finally clue in enough to listen to her speak. She sounds panic-stricken.

"Just tell me what to do, I want to help." She chokes up and then adds, "Ashley, I don't know how to help you."

My eyes are still tightly shut and I let out another sob as a searing pain runs across my scalp. I don't answer; I can't talk. Spencer falls her to knees beside me; I hear the thud. Against my wishes, I feel a hand on my arm. My whole head throbs so hard I feel like it may split in two, and I cry out sharply. I can't get the words out, but thankfully Spencer takes the hint and moves her hand away. I can hear her starting to cry.

"What can I do? I don't know what to do."

I let out a few heavy breaths, still gripping my head, and then clench my teeth together, refusing to cry anymore. Spencer's panicking and if I can look like I'm getting better, maybe she'll calm down. My head still pounding, I force myself to go still and turn away from her, hiding the tears I'm still squeezing out and quieting the breaths I can't keep from remaining shaky. Spencer's breathing heavily too from her spot next to me.

"Is it going away?" she asks, sniffing a little. I nod truthfully. Her brief touch prolonged it, but now the pain's slowly ebbing. Finally, it settles to a dull throb, and I manage to open my eyes and roll onto my back.

"I said not to touch me," is the first thing I say.

"I just wanted to help."

"You made it worse."

Spencer closes her mouth, looking like she might cry again, and then gets up and leaves the tent. I let out a sigh and close my eyes, then reach up to rub at my straining temples. "Fuck."

When I'm eventually able to walk again, I get to my feet and exit the tent, ignoring the stiffness in my muscles. Spencer's sitting on the grass on a blanket, some of the morsels from our packs placed on two plastic plates near her. I take a seat by one of the plates and we eat silently for a few minutes.

"I'm sorry," I finally offer.

"No, I shouldn't have touched you," she murmurs, not looking at me.

"You wanted to help, I get it."

She doesn't reply at first. It isn't until she's finished eating and I'm hurrying to do the same that she says, not looking at me, "I can't help that I care about you. I can't do this without you, and…" she trails off, and doesn't finish. I swallow the bite of food in my mouth and stare at her for a moment. She avoids my eyes.

"I care about you, too, Spencer."

I take another bite of my meal and watch her as she goes to stand up. "We should find you some medicine," is all she says, and then she moves to start packing up our things.

That afternoon, we reach the edge of the woods. Spencer pauses ahead of me, hiding being a tree in order to peer out at the area ahead of us. It's deserted, but I see train tracks in the distance amongst the almost prairie-like desolation around them. Spencer, look." I point and she follows my finger. "There are the tracks for our train."

As though it's been summoned by my declaration, a horn sounds and a low rumbling starts in the distance, from off somewhere to our right. Suddenly, my statement has taken on a completely literal meaning. I glance down briefly at the compass in my hands. We're meant to go to our left. This is working out perfectly.

"It's coming now?" Spencer asks incredulously. "I don't see a station. How do we board?"

"Well shit," I murmur. "This'll be fun."

We both look to each other at the same time as the rumbling gets louder and louder, and then, as though we're reading each other's minds, we both simultaneously take off in the direction of the tracks, huffing and puffing almost comically as the packs bouncing on our shoulders slow us down.

The train comes racing around a corner as we approach, barreling down the tracks at a pace just below my sprinting limit. There must be at least two-dozen cars between the front and the caboose, and some of them are open.

Spencer trails behind me as we race toward the tracks, which confuses me until I realize we never evened out our packs again after she put some of my stuff in hers. Normally she'd be faster than me, but as it is, I reach the tracks first and veer to the left, running alongside the train just as the first cars pass by. "Shit shit shit shit shit," I pant out, struggling to keep up despite the train moving at a pace that would make it relatively easy for a physically fit person to jump into. I can hear Spencer gasping for breath as she runs behind me. I move to try and take my pack off, hoping she'll take the hint and follow suit. A moment later, I pick a car to target and then toss my pack inside. It immediately leaves me feeling less burdened, and it's with only some difficulty that I latch onto the car and manage to heave myself inside. Immediately, I swivel back around and beckon to Spencer, who looks to be having a lot of trouble.

"C'mon!" I insist frantically. She hasn't bothered to take her backpack off, and is too far back to throw it inside anyway. Her only hope is to find the energy to speed up.

Her eyes widen abruptly as she runs, and I glance to my right to see what she's looking at. My heart drops. The ground slopes down about a hundred feet away, and there's an elevated bridge made for the train to travel over, because another fifty feet after the ground slopes down, it slopes back up. If Spencer isn't on this train by the time we hit that valley, she won't have the strength to chase the train back up a hill, and she'll be left behind.

The instant she realizes this, her legs start pumping harder and she slowly begins to gain ground. I can see how hard she's breathing and I grip the edge of the opening of the car, then stretch my hand out towards her, straining my entire body. I chance a glance back to my right and see we've lost another fifty feet between our car and the hill. Spencer's got seconds left.

"Grab my hand!" I insist when she's nearly within reach. "I've got you!" She looks dubious even as she struggles to catch up, and I stare at her incredulously, realizing she's thinking about what normally happens when we touch. "I think this qualifies as a dangerous situation, Spencer!"

Gritting her teeth, she picks up the pace just enough to grip my hand with hers. I ignore the flicker in the back of my brain and instead focus my entire body on the adrenaline rushing through me. With strength I didn't know I had, I yank Spencer hard, helping her up and into the car with me, where she collapses instantly, panting like her heart's about to burst. A few seconds later, the train crosses its makeshift bridge.

"That was too close," I breathe out, sitting down beside her. "Are you okay?"

"I will be," she replies after a moment, still lying on her stomach. I gingerly help her get her pack off when she finally manages to sit up. "Thanks."

"No problem," I reply, setting the pack down and then finally taking a moment to look around the car. My eyes widen.

Sitting against the wall opposite from us, evidently having been watching our little adventure the entire time, are two boys that can't be more than a year older than Spencer and I. They each have a knife in one hand, and they don't look happy.

"Shit."


	24. Part 2 - Chapter 6

**A/N: Okay, I did so much writing this weekend that I got a good distance ahead, which means frequent updates! **

**There were also a couple reviews I wanted to respond to:**

**reader1: I haven't heard of this Tom Cruise movie but I definitely need to check it out :D Definitely after I'm finished with this story though; I wouldn't want to be influenced! But anyway, I actually have had the general plot of this thing in my head for like four years (which is why I don't really think I'm creative; it's very easy to create a lot of new twists and turns when you've had four years to plan and daydream and stuff) so while the the first chapter of this was published back in March of this year I think, I've been writing and rewriting for much longer than that. So I assure you that your faith is well-placed!**

**Awesome Days: I'm glad you decided to give this AU a chance since it normally isn't your thing, but as far as this not getting more reviews, you basically have the answer there in your review haha. This story has not gotten nearly as many hits as my other ones. People seem to favor more "normal" AUs where Spashley are in high school together and just meet differently before falling in love like they did in the show. For example, my other recently-published story, "My Best Friend and I Are in the Closet", has almost 50k hits while this story has 18.6k. People are suckers for BFF obliviously-in-love high school Spashley ;) Way out-there plots like this don't seem to interest people as much. But as far as reviews go in comparison to total viewers and hits per chapter, etc, this story has by far done better than my other ones. It's just not getting as many readers. So spread the word! :P**

**And to all of you, thank you! Because this story doesn't get as many readers, I am definitely thankful to you guys who do take the time out of your day to read this. Anyway, now I've rambled; here's the new chapter...**

* * *

Spencer spins around from her spot on the ground at my declaration, still too exhausted to stand, and I instinctively move to stand in front of her when both boys get to their feet. They're both in tattered rags that can hardly pass for clothes at this point, and the shorter one has a noticeable scar just under his eye. He hangs back while the taller one crosses to us, pausing with his face less than a foot from mine. He raises the knife threateningly and I clench my jaw, trying to mask my fear with faux toughness. I've done it plenty of times with Sloan in the past.

"Names," he orders, tapping the flat of the knife against my throat for good measure.

"Tell me yours," I retort immediately.

He looks incredulous, and glances back at his friend as though to silently ask, "Is this chick serious?"

I make a split-second decision and stomp on his foot, hard. When he cries out, my free hand shoots to his wrist and I try to force the knife out of his hand. The resulting struggle eventually ends when he gains the upper hand and practically throws me to the ground. He leaves me there, panting, then, and approaches Spencer.

"Get away from her," I snap, hurrying to get to my feet again, but a hand wraps around my body from behind me, and I realize the second boy has come forward to hold me back. His friend is by Spencer now, and he watches her continue to struggle to catch her breath even as he kneels down beside her.

"You wanna give me some answers?" he questions, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head toward me without breaking eye contact with Spencer. "I'd hate for something to happen to your friend there."

Spencer glances toward me, looking apologetic, and then opens her mouth.

"Don't say anything," I interrupt, and then hold back a gasp when the knife at my hip digs in slightly, almost enough to break my skin through my shirt. If Spencer gives up our names and Patrol's after us, these guys may turn us in. Especially if there's a reward out for our capture.

Spencer sees me wince and her eyes shift to the knife at my side. She looks at the boy beside her. "I'm Spencer. This is my friend Ashley."

"Good. What brings you here?"

"Spencer, _shut up_," I say, very deliberately, glaring at her. "Look at them, they're all talk. They won't _actually- _FUCK!" I look down to my side sharply as the boy holding me back finishes sliding the blade across my skin. My shirt begins to turn red and I look at him incredulously. He looks nearly as surprised as I do, for some reason. "That… that really hurt…" I swallow hard, my vision swimming for a moment, and I barely hear Spencer shout my name before everything goes black.

I wake up sometime later to a hand lightly slapping at my face. "Ashley," a male voice commands from just above me. "It _is_ Ashley, right?" I hear him say aside to someone. He must get confirmation, because he taps me again and repeats, "Ashley. Wake up."

My eyes flutter open and I'm met with the face of the first boy. My vision takes a while to adjust. He's still a little blurry. "You stabbed me," I accuse quietly, disoriented.

He sighs. "Actually, you're obviously not thinking clearly at the moment because that wasn't me. It was Boz. And he didn't stab you; he cut you."

"I swear it was an accident! I didn't mean to press that hard. I just wanted to scare her," I hear a second voice insist from somewhere off to the side. I don't bother to respond to him.

"Spencer," I try to convey, struggling to look to my side, but a quick voice to my right reassures me.

"I'm here."

"They didn't kill you," I sigh out, relieved. "That's good."

"I'm really sorry about Boz," the boy above me says, drawing my attention back to his face. "This was a misunderstanding. Spencer explained everything and we got you patched up. You should be on your way to healing in no time." He leans down slightly and then I feel a hand on my back as he slowly helps me sit up. "I'm Sean, by the way."

"Ashley," I reply distantly, looking around for Spencer.

He looks amused. "I know; we've been told."

I locate Spencer to my right side, and a slow smile spreads across my face. I glance down to my hip, where I've been patched up, and then back to her. "So I officially have battle wounds."

"Totally badass," she humors me, smiling back. "Not that I blame you because there was a slightly larger-than-usual amount of blood, but you went out like a light."

"I probably needed the sleep," I joke weakly, and let them settle me against one of the walls of the car. When I've been taken care of, Sean and Boz retake their seats and Spencer comes to sit near me, though not too closely.

"So Spencer told us you were running away," Sean begins while Boz continues to look guilty beside him. "You're wanted women. Very nice."

"Sean and Boz are in the same boat," Spencer tells me. "They escaped from the city."

"Are we headed to the same place?" I question, trying to be as vague as possible. I don't know what Spencer revealed when I was unconscious, but I'm eager to find out.

"Probably not, since we don't really have a destination in mind," Boz finally jumps in, shrugging his shoulders. "We just wanted to get gone. The second we got out of the city we were on our own. There's a lot of paranoia when you're out here, which is why…" he trails off, then looks genuinely regretful. "I'm really sorry. We didn't know who you were. You could've been with Patrol."

"We thought the same about you," I point out. "But we didn't stab you."

"You couldn't get a knife," Sean reminds me with amusement.

I quirk an eyebrow upward. "Touché."

"So to summarize," Spencer tells me with finality, "We're all on the same side. So… while we're here, at least, there's no reason not to work together. We could use some company for a little while."

"We don't know how long we'll need to stay on this train," I point out, thinking of the compass. I should actually probably check it soon; there's no telling where it's pointing now.

"I know," Spencer agrees. "But while we're here…"

"Yeah, I get it. Just don't stab me again, Jesus Christ…"

"Sorry," Boz repeats, wincing shamefully.

"Yeah, whatever."

We spend the rest of the day learning more about Boz and Sean. They're cousins, and they came from a part of L.A. just a few miles south of us; Spencer and I have both even heard of the school they'd attended. Sean left behind a mother and a sister, both of whom had refused to leave with him. From the way he tells his story, I can tell that must've been devastating to him. Boz, however, only had a distant father with a drinking problem, and was basically on his own by the time he agreed to leave with Sean. They've been on the run for just a week, which is probably around the same amount of time Spencer and I have been, too.

I learn soon that my initial impression of Boz was pretty accurate: He's a nice guy, but he got in a little over his head with a lot of bad people up until recently. Sean, however, is smart; that's obvious from the moment we have a genuine conversation. By the time nightfall hits, I'm half-wishing they could come along with us, although logic tells me that they'd make it more likely that we'd get caught, and I'm not sure how'd I'd explain some of the advanced technology we have with us to them, like my compass, the bracelets, and our automatic camping gear.

I get a chance to check the compass eventually, and although it's pointed slightly north of the direction we're headed, we're close enough to being headed in the right direction that I feel comfortable staying on board the train for a while. Until it swivels around to point west, indicating that we've passed our destination, we should be good.

When it's time to go to sleep, we don't use our cots, not wanting Sean and Boz to ask questions, and between that and my wound, I have a hard time going to sleep. Boz and Spencer are out early, though, leaving Sean and I here awake together. Neither he nor I even bother to lie down. Maybe it's the paranoia. I know a part of me would be more comfortable keeping one eye on the boys and the other on the outdoors, just in case. I like them but my experiences have taught me not to trust people, even when I want to.

I scoot closer to where Spencer's asleep and watch her for a moment, noting how uncomfortable she looks even while unconscious. I know she must be exhausted. Sean's watching me and I try to remember that, curious to push my own mental limits. Her head is by my thigh and I scoot a little closer, ignoring the pain in my side, then reach down and gingerly pull her partially onto my lap, where she'll be more comfortable. There's an immediate steady buzz in my head, and I feel myself momentarily slip out of the present, into a scene where a conversation seems to be taking place between Spencer and me in my bedroom. I grit my teeth and reign myself in, pushing it back and then letting out a discreet sigh. If Sean sees me pass out upon touching Spencer, he'll ask questions I don't want to have to answer. This'll be a nice mental training exercise for me. Maybe after tonight I'll even have this mastered.

"So, you and her," he eventually says, taking my mind off of the buzz momentarily. The distraction's a good thing. He's something else to focus on.

"What about us?"

"You seem close," he points out. "But you're obviously not related. They let me at least remember that Boz was my cousin. Family, you know? But you two… you must've not known each other at all. So how do you end up running away together?"

I take a moment to consider how much I want to tell him. "She was the only one who was willing… I don't know…"

"Nah," he says to that, a smile on his face. "You don't pick someone you don't even know at random and then interact the way you two do. You wanna explain to me why she acted like the world had come to an end while you were unconscious today? That girl'd die for you."

"Spencer?" I question quietly, looking down to where she's still sleeping in my lap. "I don't think so. She cares about me but… we honestly haven't known each other for long."

"Well, she most know something you don't, then," Sean surmises. "Unless she just gets attached to people real quick. All I know is friends from back home never cared about each other like that; never had the time to build a friendship that made 'em feel that way. What you two have takes years."

I don't know how to respond to that at first. Finally, I mumble, "Well… how would you know that anyway? You have what, an eight-month memory span at this point?"

"Yeah, but I didn't lose the ability to use logic," he replies, smiling at me like he knows something I don't. "Ya'll knew each other, didn't you? And you know you did. Explain that one to me, because that's something I've never seen before."

"You're wrong," I lie, narrowing my eyes at him. "Don't be ridiculous; you know that's impossible."

"Maybe. But somehow you two made the impossible possible." He tilts his head to the side curiously. "Where did you say you're headed, again?"

"We didn't, and we won't."

He chuckles at that, and I tense my jaw to try and hide my annoyance at him. "Well, I'd pay money to see how that journey ends."

"I'll send you a postcard."

"Excellent." He grins for a moment, before it fades and he watches Spencer and me for a few seconds. I start to get uncomfortable under his scrutiny. "You love her?" he finally asks, and I immediately feel my cheeks color. "Ah… there it is. That's the secret."

"Stop," I hiss angrily, despite the fact that I can feel how heavy my blush must be on my face. "That's not it."

"Your mouth is saying no but the rest of you is saying yes," he observes. "See the body language, you're leaning into her and over her there; that's protectiveness." I glance down and hastily correct my posture. "And the way your arms are positioned, it's like you wish you could hold her but you know you shouldn't. Which is interesting to me because from what I saw earlier it seems like she wouldn't mind it. Funny though… she wouldn't touch you at all; made me patch you up and wake you and everything."

"You don't know anything about us. It's not that simple," I growl, trying to get him to back off. Of course, that only makes him more curious.

"More complicated than love? I think I'd need an explanation before I'd believe that one."

He raises his eyebrows expectantly, waiting, and I clench my jaw, debating inwardly. I just want this guy off my back. I hate the way he thinks he can see right through me. And he seems to be who he says he is, and I bet we'll be off this train and away from him soon enough anyway…

"Fine," I sigh out, briefly checking to see if Spencer's asleep. She is; out cold in fact. "Try: In love before the wipe, no idea who each other were after it."

The face he makes is almost worth telling him the truth, and I have to admit, it does feel liberating to finally share the full extent of what I know with someone. "What the hell…?"

"Now stop asking about it," I demand, attempting to end the conversation.

"Aw, c'mon. You can't leave me with that cliffhanger. How do you know that and how did you find each other?"

"None of your business."

"Well, at least tell me what happens next."

I roll my eyes. "We find each other, escape, and hopefully get our memories back before I have to have this conversation with Spencer," I tell him shortly. "The end."

"She doesn't know?"

"No, she doesn't know. Let's keep it that way. I don't need things getting even more weird and intense between the two of us."

He smiles, then finally settles onto his back with a satisfied sigh. "My lips are sealed. Don't you worry. _Damn_, though. Really."

"They better be," I mumble to him. He laughs quietly and then closes his eyes, and I leave him to fall asleep, instead focusing my attention to Spencer. Without Sean to distract me, the buzz is stronger again, and I hastily remind myself that Sean could still see. I'll have plenty of time to revisit my memories when I'm alone with Spencer.

Taking a deep breath, I promise myself I'll watch another memory the next time she and I are alone, and then use that promise to keep myself fighting off the buzz until I finally manage to go to sleep.


End file.
